Tactical Talk: Notts County 1-2 Exeter City, Saturday 20 January 2018

Notts County's superb unbeaten league home run has come to an end as Exeter City ran out 2-1 winners in Saturday's encounter at Meadow Lane.

The high-flying Grecians, who are in the promotion mix, took the lead after just seven minutes through Jake Taylor.

Jayden Stockley then doubled the visitors' lead just before half time as the Magpies struggled to click with several new players in the XI and in the absence of Matt Tootle and Richard Duffy.

Jon Stead pulled a goal back for the hosts with a second-half penalty, won after Shola Ameobi was hauled down in the box, but sadly Notts could not go on to find an equaliser.

How did the game pan out? Pride of Nottingham's Chris takes a look with this weekend's Tactical Talk.

Was the result fair?

It’s very hard to say it the result was fair or not, I feel a draw may have been deserved but ultimately I do acknowledge that Notts were poor yesterday – likewise I feel Exeter equally unimpressed but we massively lack any real quality on goal.

How did Notts play?

For me we seemed too focused on attacking, rather than retaining the ball – we frequently gave it away very cheaply and the whole way we played made it very difficult to match the speed/creativity which Exeter did process.

In the second half things did change, we held the ball and knocked it around – yet we never drawn Exeter’s player out or made space available. We tended to waste chances by trying to force the play, and only until Shola Ameobi came on did we look like a team able to get through the oppositions defence – simply we played a game of two halves. 

How did Exeter play?

They played okay, at times quite exciting but for some reason they always insisted on doing something which wasn’t really required. I considered them to be a very good team coming into the game, yet I feel their schoolboy tactics and efforts to cheat really became unimpressive. When they focused on playing ‘football’ they looked a useful side but I think they’d have struggled to score if Notts had performed better and had noticed what they were doing.

Did our tactics work out?

Not very well in the first half. In midfield, we had too many new faces, this really meant that Notts had to have a little more creativity on the ball and we never really saw this until the second half. We focused on attacking more than we did retaining the ball or even defending – it was clear a few minutes in that Exeter would push us due to how far we seemed to be playing up the pitch. Second half Notts played better, yet at no point was it really enough – it highlighted exactly why we need a striker and a defender as outlined in my January transfer window article (please link)

How did the referee perform?

I felt he was poor, yet his decisions seemed more ‘blinded’ than negligent – I do feel he favoured Exeter, who’s players seemed to get away with everything but really he’s the standard of your typical League Two referee and I feel Notts should be smarter to this.

Who do we play next?

Crawley Town – another test in terms of the physical side of the game. They won’t be pushed off the ball or bullied and they will pressure us for the ball. We need to be stronger and more creative, as I feel these are points to be claimed.

How should we play them?

Notts need to be focused defensively, we can’t play too far up the field and if Nicky Hunt starts – he needs to be told to only go forward when we can afford his absence.

In midfield I think we need to be calmer, more patient with our build-up play and attempt to draw the opposition out – as against Exeter we seemed to pack the centre of the park and this really limited the space that we could have exploited.

With Crawley being your typical ‘physical’ League Two team, we need to be mindful about giving them any sort of space on the pitch.

Whilst we lack pace at the back, wise positional play would give the magpies advantage and I think any attacks should be phased and risk assessed for being caught out.

I’d like to see us use Jorge Grant and Liam Noble as a way to draw the opposition out, these played apart from each other would give us a means to break the Red Devils down and to allow some ‘creativity’ to get started.

Really, Notts should look to thrive under possession-based football and look to be more dynamic with awareness going forward.

Pressure the opposition defence, use link-up play to support the attacks and just pass the ball into space whereby this may release someone goal side – it’s not exactly difficult but if we give Crawley an inch they will take a mile.

Exeter fan views (from Exeweb)

Billy the Fish: The first half we took the game to them and was as complete a performance from City as I have seen in a long while. The second half County came out entirely differently and looked like promotion candidates, dangerous in attack but strangely vulnerable to our counter attacks. Lee Holmes looked out of sorts and Jordan Tillson is obviously just filling a position until the big boys are back. He works hard and gets his challenges in but today he was like a rabbit in the headlights whenever he found himself with the ball at his feet. All the others impressed, TAH rode his luck at times but otherwise every one them can be proud of themselves. I couldn't see the incident which saw Troy penalised and booked for the penalty but it came from a free kick awarded in front of us and the linesman and for which there was no discernable infringement. One of many strange refereeing decisions which infuriated both sets of fans. Great three points and a great day out.

Red Bill: Just watched the goals, what a great goal the second was. Fantastic ball from Harley and a great finish from Stockley. I feel making the most of Harley, who i hope has done a lot to silence his critics with some terrific peformances lately, could be key to a serious promotion push.

Andrew P Long: We went too defensive after going two up. Instead of trying to prevent them scoring we should've gone for their throat. If we had done that we'd have won more easily and comprehensively, say 1-4, and RHK was cheated out of more than a grand etc.

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