The big talking points from Chesterfield's pre-season win against Grimsby Town

Liam Mandeville’s double – including an excellent strike from 25 yards into the top corner – was enough to overcome their fellow National League rivals.

Mandeville opened the scoring after 55 seconds and then got his second 20 minutes later when he poked in from six-yards, assisted by Danny Rowe.

Erico Souso halved the deficit with a deflected effort but the Mariners could not find an equaliser.

PRE-SEASON OVER

This performance and win finished a successful pre-season for the Spireites.

The hosts were in total control for the first 35 minutes and looked really sharp in the final third.

The Blues put together some lovely passing moves and could have scored more.

Particularly in the opening half an hour, Chesterfield played at a high tempo and flew into challenges almost like it was a league game, which will have pleased manager James Rowe.

Grimsby pulled a goal back against the run of play and they almost equalised twice from set-pieces after that before half-time.

After the break the Mariners got a foothold in the game as John McAtee forced Scott Loach into a save at his near post with his legs and then Sebastian Raven clipped the crossbar from distance.

Loach was tested again from long-range, this time from Sousa, and from the resulting corner he made another reaction save from Luke Waterfall.

The action quietened down after that and, as is often the case in pre-season, the flow of the game was interrupted by several substitutions.

Nathan Tyson had a shot saved late on as Chesterfield regained control and saw the match out quite comfortably in the end.

Overall, four wins from six in pre-season and some encouraging performances and partnerships formed, I would say the Spireites are very muchy ready to get cracking with the serious stuff now.

OH MANDY

After finishing last season in fine form Mandeville has carried on where he let off with his fourth goal of pre-season.

His first was a pure, clean strike into the top bag which shows the confidence he is playing with at the moment. A lot of credit must go to Mandeville but also to boss Rowe for improving his game.

His second goal was a poked finish from six-yards after Rowe dinked a creative pass over the away defence despite being crowded out.

Mandeville is now performing at the level we all expected of him when he first joined in 2019. At 24, his peak years are still ahead of him so hopefully we will see the best of him now.

SELECTION HEADACHE

Rowe has built an incredibly strong squad with fierce competition for places all over.

He wouldn’t want it any other way, but he’s given himself a big selection headache for the first fixture at Aldershot on Saturday.

They saw off Grimsby without Gavin Gunning, Manny Oyeleke and new signing Kabongo Tshimanga, which says it all.

TRIALISTS

At full-time, Rowe confirmed trialists Melvin Minter and Jim Kellermann would be signing.

Another unknown trialist came on in the second-half and played at right centre-back.

TEAM

(3-4-1-2) Loach; Kerr (Trialist, 67), Grimes, Maguire; King (Carine, 67), Weston, Khan (Clarke, 46), Miller (Whittle, 67); Mandeville (Kellermann, 74); Rowe (Tyson), Payne (McCourt, 67).