There was very little positive about the return of Jatta! He touched the ball twice at best and looked very rusty.

Palmer was ok on the ball, but tired and was non existent in the 2nd half. They are both some way off match fitness.

We did well in the 1st half but the extra man told in the end and we sat back a bit too much & too early in the 2nd half.

The main frustration was that the 3 goals were all pretty soft and didn’t result from waves of pressure. At least 2 were completely avoidable & the 3rd looked ropey too, I’ll need to see that again.

Credit to MacDonald, he was outstanding. Thought Bennetts was the most impressive & effective of the subs.

I think we missed Lee Ndlovu today. His physically upfront makes a difference & he puts himself about. I also think that it would have been much better for Notts to have played a back three for the whole game, & I think I would have brought Grant on instead of Hall in the 2nd half.

I do like Norburn because he does bring something extra to the team, but his petulance at times is costing us. He will now have to serve a one match ban & will be missing against Accrington as will Ndlovu who has to serve 1 more game of his 3 game ban.

There is a worry about Platt going off injured, but on the positive side, Palmer & Jatta came through unscathed after their returns. As I have said, Norburn & Ndlovu will be missed & Patto will have to make changes to the side that started today.

3 minutes ago, Robbie said:

I also think that it would have been much better for Notts to have played a back three for the whole game, & I think I would have brought Grant on instead of Hall in the 2nd half.

Spot on with both of those. I don't think we can continue with Hall.

Tuesday? I'd say start Jatta, Dennis behind. In the never-ending lie of No.10 trialists...

How about McDonald LCB, Bedeau LWB, Jones RWB and how about Tsaroulla as a No.10. At least we know he's not afraid to run at defenders. At this point, we're desperate.

2 minutes ago, theAnticlough said:

Spot on with both of those. I don't think we can continue with Hall.

Tuesday? I'd say start Jatta, Dennis behind. In the never-ending lie of No.10 trialists...

How about McDonald LCB, Bedeau LWB, Jones RWB and how about Tsaroulla as a No.10. At least we know he's not afraid to run at defenders. At this point, we're desperate.

I'd go with that. Accrington are a footballing side so hopefully Notts will get some room to play. Tsaroulla at number 10 could work out quite well.

Jodi is currently in great form and he got two virtual assists today. Notts do prefer when there is more room to play. After Norburn was dismissed the game opened out & Notts were much more threatening.

I think that we just ran out of steam in the 2nd half today which was unfortunate.

2 hours ago, theAnticlough said:

The more I reflect on it, the more I think dropping Macari for a home game like this was nuts. Him and Tsaroulla spend all year building up an understanding, why throw that away?

There was absolutely nothing coming down the right. The change of personnel and the weird change of shape (not a back four, but not our usual positioning) meant that we couldn't establish territorial dominance in the first 20mins of the match - we go down a goal and are still on the back foot at the time Norburn throws the boot. Not having the vertical movement in the team, from having both Norburn and Palmer also prevented us from getting on top. Both were defensive, scaredy-cat moves.

A bad few days for MP I think. Hope he can own it and put it right.

I think that first 20 minutes was a bit of an eye opener for MP. I do understand that with Robbo out getting Palmer back in is the obvious choice but it might not be the best one. He seems to be reluctant to play Iorpenda deeper now but you do get more of a balance if he plays with either Palmer or Norburn.

The defence on the right just looked all out of sorts. I just don't think Platt is suited to playing as a RCB at all. Even when he plays in the middle, I worry whenever he gets dragged out wide because he never looks totally comfortable dealing with the smaller, trickier players. In my opinion the RCB and LCB are tougher than the middle CB spot, you need to be more mobile and constantly switched on because you go from marking space, to wingers to strikers over the course of a match.

We could've made changes and rectified it, but that kind of went out the window after Norburn got sent off and that for me did more damage than the poor start. It was a great effort to get it back to 2-2 but I was dreading the second half, it felt inevitable sadly. We really looked short in midfield, not only because we were down to 10 but by time both Palmer and Tangen went off we then ended up with a makeshift midfield which was just all over the place.

Dennis getting a yellow card right at the end, was the perfect way to end a disastrous day, he’ll be out for either 1 or 2 matches as well.

Hall & Jatta had no impact or influence on the game at all. Agree that Grant should have come on rather than Hall.

Massive blow to lose Platt, he had a couple of wobbles but was generally sound again. McDonald was outstanding, I don’t think he put a foot wrong all day.

Chesterfield reflect Cook, dour, unimaginative, underhand and nasty. They won, we didn’t. That tells you something.

Continuing to rely on Jones is still baffling me, I expect him to do more than bang in a couple of decent crosses - he just doesn’t look sharp, confident or robust enough for my money. Bennetts, whose final ball has let him down thus far, looks far more dangerous - and he offered more in 35 mins than Jones did in 77.

Top 3 place is starting to look some way off - Cambs banging in 5 today & MKD winning leaves us off the pace a wee bit.

Onwards and upwards.

Embarrassing is the word that comes to mind. Embarrassing that Norburn despite being a veteran in this team and having been booked shortly before would do something as pathetic and childish as that beggars belief.

The second embarrassing thing was MP’s tactical response, he has no clue with his substitutions how to manage a game, he has cost us this game as he cost us the Grimsby game. Down to 10 men we would obviously surrender some control but to compound that with his substitutions to essentially leave us with no midfield and wonder why they began to totally dominate is embarrassing. His post match press conference is also embarrassing, he has no accountability despite his usual line of ‘I’ll own it’. MP has shown his inexperience as a manger at this level which is fine and expected but I don’t see him as someone who will learn from their mistakes because I don’t think he will see a mistake.

Very disappointing from the lads today and not one this football club should be proud of. Lots of moaning/dissent to the ref who I actually thought got most things right to be fair (I know I’m likely in the minority on that one!) Lots of blaming the ref which seems to be a theme lately but making the same mistakes ourselves.

Rant over. Onto Stanley, COYP!

I’d say that going down to 10, Cook out thinking Patto, Platt going off and putting Jatta & Hall on were the main contributory factors today.

Tactically, we got caught out by the cheating, skulduggery and deviousness of Cook and his bunch of uninspiring but annoyingly effective yobs.

1 hour ago, menzinho said:

He seems to be reluctant to play Iorpenda deeper now but you do get more of a balance if he plays with either Palmer or Norburn.

It's been so frustrating. He proved his effectiveness there and it brings so many benefits.

MP's "Tom will score goals'' assertion ain't going to happen, but we still need him in the team. Players who might be able to score would benefit from him breaking up play behind them and causing chaos joining the attack from deep. And Norburn or Palmer need a mobile, athletic player beside them.

3 minutes ago, YoopEyes said:

I’d say that going down to 10, Cook out thinking Patto, Platt going off and putting Jatta & Hall on were the main contributory factors today.

Tactically, we got caught out by the cheating, skulduggery and deviousness of Cook and his bunch of uninspiring but annoyingly effective yobs.

We just tend to struggle against these kind of tactics all the time we are pitched against it. It happened under Williams & Maynard. We are much more physical under Patto but we still get beaten more than we win under these circumstances.

We have a team in Bromley who are much more direct than Notts, but have been very effective in dealing with different tactics which their opponents employ against them, & have only lost a handful all season.

Notts need to get their physical players back, because as we come to the last ten games, teams in the top half of the league are going to cheat, play dirty, waste time, practice skullduggery, be very physical & will fight & scrap their way to try to win a playoff place or even better. Notts have to compete with those tactics.

There's two ways to look at the key decision, but ultimately the referee made the correct decision based on the written laws of the game. However, I will defend Ollie Norburn somewhat because Armando Dobra wasn't going to get up, he was trying to get the game delayed for him to put on his boot. I heard Norburn tell him to just get up, and Dobra was acting like he had his foot taken off him but knew full well Notts had emerged on the break.

I felt at the time the referee hadn't seen it, I haven't watched the video back but I believe he became aware only once Notts had two players on the ground having been poorly fouled by Chesterfield players, and a handful of players complaining to him about what Norburn had done.

You shouldn't touch other players boots, but I did laugh and so did many others who later moaned about it from the stands.

Until that decision, Notts and Chesterfield looked quite evenly matched, and neither side looked all that much of a threat. It was quite end to end, with both teams being guilty of poor play at times.

Chesterfield's scoring, defensively, was poor and I hold no blame to James Belshaw. Although I think he wasn't at his best and had quite a poor game, the two other goals I question his positioning and relex, as he dived slow for the second and looked almost like we had Kelle Roos back in goal.

Matty Platt offered little support to Nick Tsaroulla, and this was always going to make it hard to break down the right side.

This doesn't mean I don't think he defended okay, and I understand it was all about height and having ball winners in the back three places but ultimately in key stages Notts just were incredibly poor. Chesterfield should never have found it so easy to run through, and Dilan Markanday for Chesterfield was superb throughout his performance. He was by far, for me, Chesterfield's best player.

Norburn's sending off forced us to try to play better as a team, and the goals Notts scored was a result of persistant but it's a shame we lacked that when it came to keeping Chesterfield at bay. It's fine, because they deserved the win and I won't pretend differently. It annoys me how we fail to grasp what works, when it's so clear as day, but then when we try to force things due to pressure to almost being route one.

We have zero effort from Alassana Jatta to make any sort of run, or attempts to do anything. Matthew Dennis, who did try, but kept allowing his frustration to result in many half-arsed attempts to do anything.

I wanted Martin Paterson to make the change so Dennis had support, but I wished we had overloaded the midfield and left Nick Tsaroulla on.

Jodi Jones frustrated me with how he goes about himself at times, he gets the ball in a good area for a cross but decides to show to much of the ball, after trying to make a run into an area he really didn't need to be to make a cross. He loses the ball, then starts waddling around the pitch, at first almost making it seem like he had a niggle but his frustration grew, and when he went off it was clear even more.

The team tried, did well in spells and credit has to be given to coming back but the praises can easily be out done with the negatives. That's the essence of football, especially in intense rivalry matches such as this one. Nothing which happened today will be held against any players in the next match, but if I were Paterson I would be telling them I expected better.

There's no harm losing when you have 10 men on a pitch, and a referee who doesn't give you many fouls almost making Chesterfield seem to have 12. Yet even then, we just weren't good enough.

Important point from Adam Hassell about Matt Dennis being suspended for the Accrington match due to accumulated 10 yellow cards.