RICHIE Wellens wants his Swindon Town players to show their ugly side this afternoon when facing promotion chasing Mansfield Town at Field Mill.

The 38-year-old Town boss watched his side record another League Two point on Wednesday afternoon when drawing 1-1 to mid-table rivals Northampton Town, however Wellens insists more aggression needs to be injected into his players’ mentality.

The Cobblers picked up four yellow cards through persistent ‘in your face’ play while Swindon’s two cards were largely recorded because 'petulant' behaviour.

After asking his men to play with a forward-thinking mentality on Boxing Day, Wellens has now called on his men to get ugly against a Mansfield side that have lost just one game all season.

He said: “Wednesday (at Northampton) was a decent atmosphere – what sums it up for me was that we got booked in the first half once through petulance.

“They should’ve been booked a lot more than they were, but were still booked several times for being overly aggressive. That’s what we need to get into our game.

“I know we’re playing against older players, but I want us to man up.

“I want us to be physical and get into players’ faces and be horrible. I thought I times we really got the ball zipping about and we were a threat on the counter attack.

“I don’t want us to defend a cross and clear it, only to have to defend another one.”

Swindon countered with intent on Wednesday afternoon through the accurate distribution of star goalkeeper Lawrence Vigouroux.

However subsequent deliveries from the byline were either blocked or charged down by a resolute Cobblers back five – restricting Swindon to only one goal.

Manager Wellens is encouraged by the opportunities his side are creating, but admits work is still to be done until he’s satisfied with Town’s threat in front of goal.

He added: “Every time that we defend a cross, we have an opportunity to counter. And I thought we did that really well on Wednesday up until the last pass.

“Keshi (Anderson), Jak (McCourt) and Kaiyne (Woolery) all got through at some point and had to score.

“If we went two-one up, they would get frustrated and we’d be able to pick them off.

“Northampton are a decent team and I thought it was an end-to-end game.”