Notts County 3 - 1 Gillingham FC

All in all, a great game for Notts today, as we won convincingly against Gillingham FC, but it certainly didn't look that way in the first 40 or so minutes. A lacklustre, disjointed first-half performance nevertheless managed to yield a goal, courtesy of the frankly unplayable Callum McGregor, while the second half, which began with an equalising Gills goal, was a great display of attacking football in which Jack Grealish and sub Callum Ball, alongside the young Scot, tore the visitors to pieces.

Shaun Derry began the game in a 4-5-1 formation, Morgan Fox getting his first league start at left back. He replaced Manny Smith after the centre-back suffered a knock, as Alan Sheehan moved to the heart of defence alongside skipper Dean Leacock. The back four was completed by reliable Kieron Freeman.

Within the first two minutes, Freeman's free kick fell to Danny Haynes, but he somehow conspired to miss from six yards.

Not long afterwards, former Notts player Myles Weston got a cross in at the other end, but Charlie Lee headed over.

As the foundations were set for a tense and scrappy game, the Gills came within a post's length of taking the lead, Danny Kedwell's header across goal falling to Bradley Dack, whose touch grazed the inside of the post and trickled out.

Quite a few decisions seemed to go against Notts more often than not; midway through the first half, a McGregor shot was handled by Gills' Adam Barrett in the box, but no penalty was given.

After an initial 40 minutes that were an eyesore to Notts fans - some began leaving for the bar as early as 35 - the tactic of getting the ball to the flanks and attempting to cross finally, surprisingly, paid dividends. Jamal Campbell-Ryce managed to get the ball to McGregor, and courtesy of some scrappy pinballing in the box, the young Scot retained the ball and was able to fire into the net. 1-0 Notts.

The second half then began poorly for Notts, and within 90 seconds, were pegged back to 1-1. Dack met a cross from the right at close range and although Bartosz Bialkowski got his hand on the ball, he was unable to prevent it from trickling inside the right-hand post.

However, McGregor, ever the star man, scored an exquisite goal just eight minutes later. He picked up Gary Liddle's ball in front of the Gills goal, but rather than smash it in brutally and thoughtlessly, he weaved into position, made fools out of their defenders, then powered a shot into the net. 2-1, the crowd went wild.

Things would get even better when the ineffective Haynes was replaced by Derby loanee Callum Ball. The rest of the game saw him, McGregor and Grealish completely terrorise the Gillingham defence.

The away side had some good attempts and very nearly pulled it back to 2-2 after Jake Hessenthaler's corner was met by Donervan Daniels, but McGregor only found himself in the right spot at the back to make a stupendous goal-line clearance. Adebayo Akinfenwa had a great chance of his own but Bart was equal to it with an amazing save on 72.

The icing on the cake came courtesy of Grealish on 87. He picked up the ball, weaved past the Gills defence, and finally rifled a fantastic shot into the net, to the sounds of "Shoot! Shoot! SHOOOOT!" coming from the Kop.

The valiant Magpies were able to see out the game, and when the final whistle came, the Notts fans were jubilant. Great performance, great result, and despite still being bottom of the table, we're three points from safety, though we need to see how the games in hand of the teams above us pan out.