Notts still have problems against strong, physical teams that also have pace upfront. They are still susceptable to making catastrophic mistakes at the back.

Notts demonstrated against Oldham that they are still vunerable to the Counter attack that has plagued them since their return to League 2.

Notts lacked discipline against Oldham with a player recieving two yellow cards resulting in his sending off & two other players recieving yellow cards. It a worrying trend, that is hurting them massively.

The team appeared to give up after the sending off & failed to create any meaningful opportunities afterwards. There appeared to be a lack of leadership from all the senior players to rally the team to make a game of it.

A great performance in the previous match against Cheltenham to the complete opposite against Oldham which demonstrates a lack of consistency that a team challenging for promotion requires.

My take away is a question...

How do we unlock Ness? Lucas did Ok last night but has got to step up as a leader now he's our CB for the run-in. And we've got to hope MP can inspire him to do it.

Edited March 25Mar 25 by theAnticlough

4 minutes ago, theAnticlough said:

Look, I've had a few (quite a lot, actually), but I hope you get my point. Lucas has got to step up, and we've got to hope MP can inspire him to do it.

Based on the team performance last evening, the whole squad left standing needs to step up & claim at least a playoff spot which is not yet secured.

We lack an actual functioning captain - someone who is an automatic pick, is vocal and leads by example in terms of play and discipline. I know they won't take it off Palmer but just thinking aloud, who could theyt turn to - Belshaw? Iorpenda?

We're now playing catch-up due to too many cheap losses. Do we have the consistency to hunt the top three down? Can we produce our A game against Cambridge and Salford?

6 hours ago, theAnticlough said:

How do we unlock Ness? Lucas did Ok last night but has got to step up as a leader now he's our CB for the run-in. And we've got to hope MP can inspire him to do it.

Ness has already shown us how good he can be, now he's got the precious opportunity of a run of games as an automatic starter. It's time to trust him and back him to deliver on his potential.

It is a great opportunity, Stark. And we have no option but to trust in him.

But maybe it'll need a quick adjustment of his attitude and demeanour. He's got to be a leader now.

If ever he gets crocked, Macari-Bedeau-Bennetts might be another backline we can throw out there in an emergency

Maybe the Oldham result (and one or two others actually) suggest we should re-think our recruitment strategy. To get out of league two it seems you need strong physical players with pace. Then when promoted add the more technical players as you climb the leagues.

I think had we lost 3-0 with 11 players on the pitch I’d be more concerned. Their wasn't much between the sides first half, both teams had good spells. For me we clearly tried to make positive changes at half-time by bringing on Ndluvo, but we didn't get to see if it worked because after 2 minutes we were suddenly one midfielder short and had an excess of forwards.

In hindsight we should’ve subbed off Norburn at half-time, of course it’s very easy to say all this after and it doesn’t help we basically only have 3 natural CM’s now and all of them were already playing! Maybe in future matches if Norburn is on a yellow he will be subbed off because he can’t be trusted to not do something stupid.

The biggest issue for me was how both goals came from our set-pieces. Are we committing too many players forward? Do we need to leave another player back? Maybe against teams like Oldham we do because if we stop their counter attacks, we make them a lot less dangerous…

31 minutes ago, menzinho said:

In hindsight we should’ve subbed off Norburn at half-time, of course it’s very easy to say all this after and it doesn’t help we basically only have 3 natural CM’s now and all of them were already playing! Maybe in future matches if Norburn is on a yellow he will be subbed off because he can’t be trusted to not do something stupid.

I was posting to do this on the match thread 😎 @menzinho I saw it a mile off.

It would have occurred to MP too, he botched that one. Norburn wasn't playing well either and we weren't making an impact either, despite chasing the game from very early on. Two other reasons to make that particular change.

Palmer was superb against Accy and Cheltenham. Let him run the show and put a true box-to-box player next to him (we certainly have one)