Game 31 - The Fishermen (A)
Team - Fleetwood Town
Date - 31/01/2026 15:00
Where - Highbury Stadium

What would your starting line-up be? What will be the key areas for the Magpies to get a victory? What do you think the final score will be?

Have your say below, join in with the Pride of Nottingham match discussion.

Fleetwood have recently parted company with their Head Coach, Pete Wild & appointed First Team Coach Matt Lawlor as their Interim Head Coach till the end of the season. His team got their first win in five matches when the won at Harrogate on Tuesday. Fleetwood currently stand in 13th place, eleven points adrift of Notts.

As for Notts they will be looking for their fourth win in a row after their very impressive win against a very good Swindon Town side on Tuesday evening. Notts have an injury worry, with Club Skipper Matt Palmer feeling a possible hamstring issue & he didn't play against Swindon.

I expect that Notts will probably keep the same starting eleven that faced Swindon, with no changes on the bench if everyone is fit. Martin Paterson tends to keep to the same side if they have played well together in their last match.

No games are easy in League 2. Fleetwood will pose problems for Notts with their hard working mentality characterised, by intense running, high pressing style, along with defensive resilience & their ability to graft out results.

Tactics such as those have posed problems for Notts in the past, but under Martin Paterson, Notts have found much more resilience of their own & the ability to counter those tactics by being more direct & physical with opponents when the need arises.

Key players for Notts will be Goalkeeper, Belshaw, Defender Bedeau, Midfielders Iorpenda, Norburn & Grant, Jones on the left & not forgetting Jatta & Dennis. All have been influential during the last few matches.

Notts need as ever to be strong at the back & midfield, & take their chances upfront when the opportunity arises. I think that Notts can add to their successive wins tally on Saturday if they continue with the excellent form they have shown of late. Every game is going to feel like a Cup Final till the end of the season.

Listening to Martin Paterson's pre Fleetwood press conference, as far as the transfer window is concerned, he is quietly confident that it is very late in the day for any outs & as for the ins, the business is very much done, & he's quite content with the business that has been done.

As far as the injury to Palmer is concerned, I don't expect to see him playing against Fleetwood.

New signing Harald Tangen is training with the players, but as he is three weeks into his off season, it may take a few weeks for him to get up to speed. Martin was non committal when he was asked when Tangen might be ready to start.

The worry for me about Palmer and hearing that he’s getting all these different opinions makes me think he might need some sort of surgery. Something like that at this stage would more than likely end his season. Nothing has actually been revealed, but I don’t see why you’d need to get lots of opinions if it was something straightforward.

As for the weekend, I won't be surprised if we see a few changes. Just because after the Accrington loss Martin said he should’ve changed the side because he pretty much played the same team in that block of matches prior. We’ve had the same side now since our little break after Crawley (well almost, just Hall in for Palmer against Swindon) so for me a couple of changes to keep us fresh wouldn’t be a bad thing.

I would start Dennis in behind Jatta, Roberston (fitness allowing) and possibly even Kouhyar at wingback because that position does require a lot of running. It’s definitely not players being dropped though, just making sure fatigue isn’t an issue especially as we will want to press the opposition from the off.

If we can make it 4 wins from 4 I’ll be very impressed.

Yes, Dennis should be a regular starter

If it was the worse case scenario and Palmer is out for months, it wouldn’t kill us completely. We have 4 CMs including pairings that are proven to work

We have the best two strikers in the league with Ndlovu as good backup. Jodi is back to his best and a good strong defence and midfield. If we don't have a strong end to the season, we will only have ourselves to blame. The owners have shown ambition while at the same time balancing the finances. MP and his coaching team are moving us in the right direction. It's up to the players now to do it on the Pitch. COYP!

I agree about our strikers @McPie & those three are going to be so vital for us having a chance of achieving promotion this year. The fact that they are backing each other up if one gets injured is a great advantage too. Hopefully, Notts can take advantage this great opportunity.

IT'S MATCHDAY. CMON U PIES!!

Martin's Team to face Fleetwood. No changes.

20 minutes ago, Robbie said:

Martin's Team to face Fleetwood. No changes

Great. I love this way of running the team.

You keep your place in a winning team. But if you don't win, you drop out when you lose form or look tired. So don't lose form or look tired.

Edited 17 hours ago17 hr by theAnticlough

(1) Kick off.

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GOOOOOAAAAAL JATTA

Assist from Jones

HALF TIME.

Horrible game, but our superiority has been on display and they've been pretty much snuffed out so far.

Two CMs - Norburn has been great, Hall hasn't. Platt has been good and Grant is doing better this time.

3pts are there for us today as long as we don't do anything silly

(46) BACK TO IT

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Just after the Notts substitutions.

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GOOOOOAAAAAL DENNIS

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FULL TIME

Four on the bounce for Notts

Fantastic Notts. I make that a sensational 50 points from the last 25 games after our shaky start. Keep that up and there's nowway three other teams will finish higher than us.

Fantastic win against one of our bogey sides on an awful pitch & a terrible ref. A match we would have lost last season. Big difference this season. COYP.

Impressive response to being pegged back. We deserved the win.

Gutsy performance in a physical game. Different players than usual stepped up for us.