It is often heard that we shouldn’t get carried away with our current progress, because “we haven’t beaten anyone in the top seven.” Is this a misleading statement? We could turn this statement on its head and also say, we haven’t been beaten by anyone apart from Salford in the top seven. The table positions are fluid. For example we drew with Bromley when they were in the top seven and we have drawn with Swindon, both games we could easily have won. For me the the progress we have made genuine and without getting carried away, am looking forward to the rest of the season and a good January transfer window. COYP!

Doncaster got promoted as champions last season with 24 wins & 12 draws. It's always an advantage to beat teams in the top seven, however if you just draw some of those games it can be as good as a win.

Notts got 20 wins & 12 draws last season and missed out on the automatics by just two wins because if Notts had achieved those two wins they would have had a superior goal difference over Bradford.

If Notts achieve 25 wins, all being equal, they will probably be promoted even if they don't beat any of the current top seven, but it is always a big advantage to beat your nearest rivals as we witnessed last season.

I think that Notts under Martin Paterson are in a better place to win these top games now. I think there is a difference in the player mentality this season by having the belief that they can win these top games against their closest rivals.

The December fixtures will tell us a lot about whether that question of beating teams in the top seven will be answered or not when Notts meet four of the current top seven & one of them home & away.

I agree @Robbie December is going to be an interesting barometer as to where we are. On the question of beating those in the top seven I think we are more than capable of beating any of them. It’s just at the moment we only have Salford to base a judgment on and we weren’t good that day. In fact we’re a completely different team now. So reasons to be optimistic!