Notts County 0 - 1 Fleetwood Town

After a positive start away at Preston North End, Notts were brought back down to earth with a 1-0 defeat at home to Fleetwood Town. It wasn't so much the scoreline that was the issue, rather the inept display from the men in black and white on the pitch.

It was hoped that the 3-0 pounding at Sheffield Wednesday in midweek was a one-off against a team in a higher league in a cup competition, but today, the Magpies put in a shambolic performance which saw the Fishermen win thanks to Jamie Proctor's first half goal.

The first chance of the game fell to the home side, as a cutback from Haydn Hollis fell to Ronan Murray, who blasted over.

Just a few minutes later, Proctor threatened the Notts goal with a curling shot from the edge of the area, but this too sailed wide.

For the rest of the first half, the Magpies were restricted to ambitious half-chances which failed to trouble the Fishermen keeper, while the opposition plugged away with dangerous efforts.

Roy Carroll had to be at his best to thwart chances from Gareth Evans, Stephen Jordan, Jamie Morris and Proctor in the first half.

Just as it seemed that a goalless scoreline loomed at half time, Proctor converted a Morris cross from close range to put the away side a goal up and send the Magpies into the dressing room to a chorus of boos.

Notts were better in the second half, with Liam Noble firing just wide a few minutes after the restart, while Hayden Mullins's perfectly-timed long-range pass found Adam Dawson, who forced a good save from the opposition keeper.

Substitutes Jeremy Balmy and Zeli Ismail injected some flair and intent into the team, the former setting up Gary Jones, whose subsequent shot was tipped over, while the latter forced a fumbled save with a chipped shot.

Nevertheless, the Magpies couldn't quite breach the Fleetwood clean sheet, and after some further exchanges, the final whistle blew to another chorus of boos from the Meadow Lane faithful.