Stevenage 2-0 Notts County

It's amazing how quickly things change. Just ten days ago, Notts County travelled down to London seeking their 23rd unbeaten game on the road against Leyton Orient, the one still shining light of an otherwise darkening season. Now, a four-match spell away from Meadow Lane has gifted us just one win, a laboured effort against abyss-destined Portsmouth, and three defeats. The latest one, against Stevenage Borough tonight, was the most disappointing, purely because of its predictability.

Conceding an early goal? Check. Great build-up play but inability to convert chances? Check. The third box, which is conceding from set-pieces, stays unticked, at least tonight, but all three need to be addressed by the coaching team and players if we're to stop freefalling towards the lower echelons of the league, with a team that, on paper, should be challenging for promotion.

Caretaker boss Chris Kiwomya made one change to the team that played Hartlepool at the weekend, Gavin Mahon replacing Joss Labadie in centre-midfield, while teenagers Greg Tempest and Tyrell Waite were on the bench.

Stevenage, so often our bogey team, took only 21 seconds to go in front, and although it was quite freakish, Filipe Morais' shot deflecting off his team-mate into the path of Sam Hoskins, who converted leaving Fabian Speiss with no chance, you couldn't help but feel our three-man defence has not been so solid lately.

Notts had the ball in the back of the net soon after the kick-off, but unfortunately Jeff Hughes' effort was disallowed for offside.

The game settled before long, both teams having fair shares of possession, JCR being Notts' standout player, as per the last few games. He delivered some good crosses into the Boro box, but those weren't converted.

Aside from an attempt from Stevenage to score another on the half hour mark, which Lucas Atkins failed to convert, it was all Notts from then on. The Magpies had six corners by half time, all in the last ten minutes, but none of these came to fruition and the half finished 1-0 to the home side, who had two players booked for bad tackles. David Gray's on Yoann Arquin was particularly horrific, and could have easily been a red.

The second half started with Stevenage threatening, decent efforts from Gray and Greg Tansey being blocked by Dean Leacock, but Notts rallied to produce the best chance of the game so far, Arquin playing Zoko through but the Ivorian's shot just wide of the top-right corner.

JCR then burst into the Stevenage box and saw his effort deflected, the rebound falling to Alan Judge whose shot was saved by Boro keeper Steve Arnold.

The remainder of the game saw Notts and Boro trade chances, the former going through another spell of racking up corner kicks, before the home side, in a cruel twist of fate, then scored the second, despite all of Notts' efforts, as Gray's cross found Marcus Haber's head to beat Speiss and seal the victory.

So at the end of the game, Notts remain five points off the play-offs, but considering we've lost our talismanic striker, are without a manager, and suffer from the same old problems resurfacing time after time - the brittle three-man defence, conceding early or from set pieces, and the toothlessness in attack - it's time to realise that this season is at risk of unravelling before our very eyes, and we must address these issues as soon as possible.