Game 34 - The Shrews (A)
Team - Shrewsbury Town
Date - 17/02/2026 19:45
Where - Croud Meadow

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.

Gavin Cowans is the Shrewsbury manager....previously at Brackley we need to avenge that cup defeat.....BIG TIME!!!

The fact that Gavin Cowans is their new manager is the thing that concerns me. He got his tactics right against in the FA cup and knows how we play. Add to that the new manager bounce factor, this is not going to be easy. However we are a different animal now. If we can mix it Bromley on their patch and come away disappointed with a draw, we should not fear going to Shrewsbury. If our attitude an approach is right we can get all 3 points COYP!

Notts travel to Shrewsbury to play a side that has recently had a change of Head Coach. Gavin Cowan was appointed on the 29th January. In the four games that he's been in charge, they have won two, drawn one & lost one. Their last fixture was a good 3:1 win at home to Swindon.

Shrewsbury have pulled clear of the bottom three & currently stand in 19th place on 29 points. Gavin Cowan was previously in charge of Brackley Town who beat Notts in the FA Cup first round earlier in the season.

No match in League 2 is easy and this match for Notts will be no different. Robertson will be unavailable for Notts due to his red card against Bromley. Notts will be hoping for better news on the fitness of Striker Alassana Jatta & Club Captain Matt Palmer.

I think Tom Iorpenda will probably partner Ollie Norburn in the centre of Midfield in the absence of Robertson, I expect Grant to retain his place alongside Tangen just behind either Dennis or Ndlovu upfront.

I think one of the key areas will be upfront where Notts need to start taking the chances that they are creating. I also think that the midfield area will be important. Can Tangen come in and impose himself on the opposition? If Notts play well I think they can get a positive result.

Notts team to play Shrewsbury.

I think it's the first eleven I expected.

I’ll be watching on the telly, Sky Sports+ live stream, I’m looking forward to a good game and (hopefully) a Notts win.

COME……….ON…………YOU………….PIES!

57 minutes ago, Robbie said:

Notts team to play Shrewsbury.

I think it's the first eleven I

Yes @Robbie love it.

No enforced changes (with possible exception of Ness, or maybe that's just to accommodate someone else)

Iorpenda back to CM with Norburn and Tangen in at No.10. Excellent. Let's see how it goes. COYP!

Edited Tuesday at 19:351 day by theAnticlough

(1) The Match Kicks off

Shrewsbury 0 Notts 0

CMON U PIES!!!

Goalless at the break.

We're doing OK. But how to create chances?

The narrow pitch is cramping Jones and Tsaroulla. I think we need to take more risks down the middle. Who can surge forward, beat a man and open things up?

None of the teams around us are winning so come on Notts it’s a perfect opportunity.

(46) Back to it. No changes.

Shrewsbury 0 Notts 0

Goal to Shrewsbury

Full Time defeat for Notts on the road.

Shrewsbury 1 Notts 0

Very poor showing. Hardly created a chance in that 2nd half.

Montague bought Tangen to play No.10 cos the likes of Iorpenda have had little attacking impact in 33 games. That was a mistake by MP. This insistence on playing non-scoring No.10s all season long could cost us promotion.

I know they were poor, especially JJ, but he could have switched Jones and Tsaroulla to No.10s and taken off Grant and Iorpenda - it was all about creating chances.

Subs were very poor too .

Absolutely clueless, no idea and once again no plan B.

It could have been worse but only Swindon and Chesterfield won in the top eight. Notts still eight points clear of eighth place.

3 minutes ago, Michael D Pie. said:

Absolutely clueless, no idea and once again no plan B.

Can't argue with that.

But I wanted to see Iorpenda's energy deep and see how clever and creative Tangen could be further forward. I think we would have had much better balance that way. Is the Technical Board still sitting these days?

Disappointing result, the ref didn’t help us, that foul on Jodie! Is the ref blind? He didn’t give us anything the whole night.

Also on another day we might have got a penalty in the last minute but it wasn’t to be, we move on to Saturday and a chance to put it right.

Need to give the Shrewsbury HC credit for this result. He got his tactics absolutely right so fair play to him. It was like the Brackley match all over again.

It's clear Notts have still not solved how to counter the aerial threat of teams, and we saw again tonight the packing of their defence by the opposition & trying to hit Notts on the break, & looking for Notts mistakes working for them.

It's clear Tangen is a flair player, but it needed more physicality by Notts tonight. We have seen once again, like what happened under Maynard, that pretty football doesn't work all the time against those teams in League 2 that employ these tactics.

We need to move on but try to learn from this defeat.& Notts need Jatta back asap otherwise we will suffer in his absence.

I don't think you can begrudge a home team one goal. We lost because we couldn't create anything.

I think Stall's analysis mid-way through the 2nd half is spot on....'there isn't enough goals in the team'

We're 33 games in - our defenders have chipped in zero. Our 2 most picked no.10s have a combined 4 goals in 60 games. We can be toothless

4 minutes ago, theAnticlough said:

I don't think you can begrudge a home team one goal. We lost because we couldn't create anything.

I think Stall's analysis mid-way through the 2nd half is spot on....'there isn't enough goals in the team'

We're 33 games in - our defenders have chipped in zero. Our 2 most picked no.10s have a combined 4 goals in 60 games. We can be toothless

Sometimes pretty football doesn't work well in this league..It needs something a little different. We've got away with it in several matches this season, but we've been found out a little tonight, and I'm sure other teams will be taking note

There's no way you could describe tonight's performance as pretty football - there was nothing pretty about it.

We fell short for quality

And bravery - hardly anyone was willing to try something that might unlock them.

Another thing that caught up with us was missing our 3 best players this season (IMO, by level of performance) - Jatta, Palmer and Robertson (throw in McDonald too, but Platt was good anyway).

They were well-organised and feisty (Kabia was great and probably MoM) but were there for the beating by our best side or this side playing better.

Notts had 73% possession & these stats from the BBC are revealing. Notts were back to their fault of lots of passes (615) but no penetration.

Most of the time Martin gets it right but on this occasion he lost the tactical battle. Why not force teams like Shrewsbury to make the pace & hit them on the break?

Why not force teams like Shrewsbury to make the pace & hit them on the break?

Well they were certainly making the pace in the period before and up til they scored. I'm glad they didn't make more of the pace

@Robbie you seem to want a fundamental change of approach, one we've never seen in the 7 seasons since the Bros arrived. What would forcing teams to make the pace look like?

We are a better team than Shrewsbury with better players. The idea should be to show that by dominating as much of the game as we can? Would not playing our game work out for us? Genuine questions

I thought MP was clear on where we fell short in his post-match - bravery to get on the ball and make something happen.