I rewatched the first 57mins of the Chesterfield defeat this morning. There were some interesting details to check out and this is what I saw.

1) The formation

Adam and Stall are top notch but they were wrong about a back 4 Tsaroulla's positioning was never that of a Right Back. He was too far forward and sometimes inside. It was an Asymmetric set up with Tsaroulla as Right midfield. Jones was further forward. It was a back three but sliding over to the left slightly compared to normal. You can still say Platt was RCB, Rodmac CB and Bedeau LCB.

Instead of picking Macari and Iorpenda in CM, MP opted for the extra insurnace of Platt's height and a double pivot of Palmer and Norburn. Two defensive-mided changes that would come back to bite us hard....

2) Norburn

With Palmer doing his normal holding job. Norburn thought he had to run around everywhere. That was why he was at the touchline going through Dobra for the first yellow. He shouldn't have been asked to do that, it isn't his game. He's said himself that he's not a No.8. And he was clearly wound up about Dobra from the off. It's a specific Notts thing I think so this must have come from others winding him up. Dobra probably embeliished the contact but Norburn went through him with his studs up. So he could have no complaints about either

3) Platt

If you study the injury he was doing Macari's job of surging up the right then quickly turning back sprinting into the box and turning again. As a 6 ft 2 CB whose game is face-forward head, block and tackle everything, he should never have been asked to play RCB, a totally different position. We saw this before with Rawlo

At Accy we went back to playing a ball-playing mobile RCB and a marauding whole-pitch box-to-box CM. The coaches really screwed up by making these defensive changes for a home game we should have set out to dominate. Taking out all that extra insurance cost us dearly IMO. If we go for it, being brave and positive, I think we can live with whatever the outcome is in May.

I like your summing up @theAnticlough

The Norburn sending off did seem to make a difference to how the match unfolded. Him going off actually emboldened Notts for about 30 minutes, until we ran out of steam.

Just a thought, Martin Paterson intended to field a back four, but in some ways the defence & central midfielders were just so used to playing a 3:4:2:1 that Tsaroulla just found himself going forward & Norburn was just trying to cover him.

So the intended formation that Martin had planned didn't happen in practice especially after the sending off.

I guess that's possible @Robbie but Tsaroulla would've been so wildly wrong in his positioning in that case....

If you watch, he's always a good 10-20 yards forward of Platt. I wonder if those 'average positioning' maps are still done. Regardless of whatever MP wanted, Platt was RCB and Tsaroulla RM or RWB

[ a back 4, if you wanted RodMac and Platt together, would've needed a radical shift to something like 4-2-3-1 no more Wing-backs, or 4-4-2 no more No. 10s]

Defensive team changes has been a lifelong pet hate of mine as a fan. That pair though take the biscuit in terms of impact, if Platt and Norburn weren't out of their natural roles.....

The best way to promotion now is the Accy formula IMO. Pick a positive team and concentrate on accurate passing and movement, hard running, final third execution. Trust in a full season's training ground work by better footballers to take us all the way.