Super_Danny_Allsopp

There isn't a great deal to say after that. Notts absolutely dominated the second half, men against boys. It was men who couldn't finish, however. What you'd say of this squad is that it misses a poacher like Dennis and somebody to give Doyle and Reeves some competition, somebody maybe a bit more direct, a box to box type. Wolfe can't even make the subs bench. The officials were terrible, but consistently terrible. If they're giving you nothing all game, don't go down and expect it to change, Kyle. It was just one of those days where nothing really goes for you. What we learnt today? Turner will have a lot of good games, but he has the donkey within him and had another couple of go's at it today before pressing the self destruct and getting himself sent off in spectacular fashion. The officials didn't know their arse from their elbow, but even they knew that was a straight red. It didn't affect the game, as Hartlepool were a spent force in an attacking sense by that point. In fact, it probably helped.... whoever is telling Doyle to drop in to the defence so Turner can go forward and become a playmaker needs to have a word with themselves. Lacey? Yes. Rawlinson? OK. Ben Turner? Hell no. If we need a goal, Jimmy Knowles isn't good enough to be the answer. When Ardley was on about weighing up the loanees, you have to think that Graham, Knowles and Wolfe aren't pushing to start or even be on the bench in some cases. Surely we can do better even permanently or on loan? A pacey striker and a central midfielder are an absolute must, to push this team on.

Correct. Economies of scale. hussein kanji Dec 23 Misinformation from me. From more research, the price deltas appear to be true but the UK ordered 7m of Moderna and 40m of the Pfizer vaccine, whereas the EU has ordered 160m doses of Moderna and 200m of Pfizer doses (with an option to buy an extra 100m).

Hartlepool look like they've had the rest and we look slow and tired. Speed it up Notts!!!

They've done well in the last 2, but when you stretch that out a bit, it's Notts that are more in form. Interesting we're good at home and they are good away. We are better in defence, they are better in attack. Shapes up for an interesting game, I'm thinking (hoping) 2-0 to Notts. COYP!

The amount of Covid in the national league (in football in general actually) seems pretty damn high. They must be close to achieving herd-immunity soon?! Notts certainly have or are pretty close to it!

There isn't much arguing with that. Even the countries that seemingly did quite well, like Germany in the first wave, are now as bad as most other places. The Eastern European countries seemed well-off in the first wave (probably due to population density or travel intensity, I'm guessing, as it certainly wasn't government response) are now having a real bad time of it. If you'd wind back the clock, the response would no doubt be better, but I doubt many European governments are competent enough (and their populace willing enough) to achieve elimination. Europe was riddled with the virus while China was still murdering its own doctors trying to warn us all. Looks like the U.K will approve the Oxford vaccine too and start vaccinating the elderly and vulnerable with a bit more speed. That should unburden the NHS and allow most people to get back to a sense of normality, even as the virus circulates in the younger, healthy population. Meanwhile vaccinations will be ongoing and hopefully around late 2021 we'll have something resembling herd immunity and normality.

???? Stop it! Please delete this, it doesn't fit the narrative... EU only passed it after the Germans had enough of waiting for them to ratify it too, otherwise they'd be waiting well into the new year.

That is as non league as it comes. Abolsute dire game devoid of any quality from either side. First touches are awful, can't pass to our own players and so many mistakes. Turner started so nervy and calamitous, could've easily given them a goal. Rawlinson not much better. Up front Wotton has the touch of a rapist, Sam even worse. Even Rodrigues had a few bad touches. We're lucky that Woking have been as bad as us. Imorovement needed. COYP.

The game last night was just one of those games. We were dominant for the whole 90, played well and created lots of chances, but didn't finish any of them. Our finishing needs to improve, but as a setup and a performance, it was good. It's games like these where you miss a Dennis who will get you that one goal. Instead we brought on Knowles who didn't contribute anything of note. This is less concerning for me because although the result isn't great, the performance was solid. You play like that and you will win 9/10 games.

Me too. Thought he was probably our best player technically, but then again, looking at that teamsheet, it wasn't too difficult. Can't even remember McMahon!

Steve Thompson the manager still that year? That midfield is a strange one. Ian Ross - an anomaly and Jay Smith - technically there but so small and made of glass.

I see that Myles Weston, ex Notts, plays for the Daggers. I wonder if he is still the same player I remember.... a fast, direct winger more than capable of beating players at ease but couldn't cross to save his life. Still a useful player for us though, he's only 32 so surprised he is down at this level, but looking at Wikipedia he has been here a while.

I see little reason to change a successful line-up.

For the most part, yep! They still have their morons though, especially religious ones: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53803011

Which is a valid argument you can make, yes, they should've stopped the flights from those key areas. However quarantining all arrivals is an elimination tactic that can't be used long-term for a country like the U.K. It involves a complete lock-down of borders OR mandatory enforcement of quarantine hotels or camps (this is one of the draconian things that NZ has adopted). A complete lock-down of borders is hardly going to fly with the Brexit transition period, plus I'm sure a hard border (which it would effectively be) in N.I violates the Good Friday agreement, even though it could be claimed it would be 'temporary' (lasting at least 1 1/2 years). South Korea is again comparing apples to oranges. Firstly, South Korea is much more prepared for this than any European country as they've been here before a few times, so they have a much more refined strategy and their populace were more aware of the general procedures. Additionally, South Korea is far more digitised than most if not all of Western Europe, including the UK. Their track and trace system is technologically impressive, but quite invasive, including using credit card purchases to trace movement and alerting people to the age, appearance and location of those infected. This wouldn't be tolerated throughout most of W. Europe, which is why you see much more anonymous tracking apps that are undoubtedly less effective. South Korea only has one land border to another country, much like us, but nobody wants a DMZ setup between us and Ireland.

Closing the schools is all well and good for the teenagers mostly, who (at least from what I've seen) are unable or uncapable of socially distancing from each other. It will impact their education, but that is another concern. The schools cannot close for children that are unable to look after themselves at home. The economy needs to run and parents need to work, plus education at those younger years are vital and can't be put on hold for a year.

Propaganda nonsense. I'm all for criticising the government, but at least have a valid argument. There are many aspects of their Covid response that has been bad and even terrible, but not pursuing an elimination goal is not one of them. This is an argument for elimination of the virus, like New Zealand tried (it keeps getting out but they're pretty much on top of it). Hardly anybody has attempted this worldwide. The reasons why is a combination of 2 main factors, A: You need to be incredibly remote and isolate yourself off almost entirely (geographically) and a low population density helps and B: You need to implement draconian methods to suppress the freedoms of your population in order to achieve it. New Zealand falls mostly (but not entirely) into A. We won't see what damage they have done to their economy for a good number of years, but you can bet their tourism industry is knackered, although that would maybe have happened to a large part anyway. NZ has one main city, Auckland, and 2 small cities, Wellington and Christchurch. Beyond that there is a lot of land and not a lot of people. Sheep do not spread the virus. Even then, there has been many draconian measures placed on their population that wouldn't have been accepted by a larger population without the same herd mentality as exists in NZ. NZ should be commended for its handling, but it needs to be appreciated in context; an island nation bigger in landmass than the UK and in the middle of nowhere and 5 million population. Or we can go the other route, like China, route B, and become a dictatorship to beat our population into accepting the terribly harsh conditions we enforce upon them to literally eliminate the virus by force. That's if you believe that China have a handle on it, like they say they do. Some may argue that the ends justify the means. Others, myself included, would argue that this is a draconian enforcement that I wouldn't want to live under.

You're right - I am lost then. Exactly what would the UK have gained by joining the EU's purchase agreement in this sense? The transport by road would have been the same regardless. A vaccine manufactured in either the US or perhaps in Switzerland (not in the EU either), will be delayed at the ports for an endless time? I'm sure nobody would think to prioritise it.

This is bollocks and reeks of somebody approaching everything at an anti-Brexit angle. The EU's vaccine contract discussions have been slow. They only signed a contract with Pfizer/Biontech this month, and I live about 5 minutes from Biontech HQ! You could've quite easily spun that the other way.

The bottom line though is 3 points, and today I'll have a smile on my face and will feel much happier than I did at 2-1, that's for sure! Thanks Ruben!

That was a terrible performance. It will surprise nobody that the same problems highlighted previously were all there again. Slow, boring build up that inevitably breaks down. The midfield 3 were woeful, even by recent standards. If you could have subbed all of them off, you would've. Doyle's build up play is so slow that somebodies dad who Chesterfield recruited to play up front and they called 'Denton' was picking his pocket. Embarrassing. Him and O'Brien cannot play together. O'Brien was atrocious, gave the ball away repeatedly and can't defend. Reeves was just as bad. That brings us to another problem previously highlighted: no central midfielder on the bench to bring on. Not one. We started fairly brightly. We created a bit, Roberts hit the post, Enzio curled one past the post that wasn't too far away and we looked like we could build it up. We got the goal and then..... we stopped. Stopped creating, stopped pressing, stopped everything. Our midfield was so deep they were on our centre backs toes. It was a matter of time before they scored, and score they did. Ardley needs to change the way this team are playing and the selection. As I said at HT, Chesterfield are the worst team I've seen this season. According to their commentators aswell, that was a good performance from them. Deary me. Any half decent side would've destroyed us today. As much as our tactics are **** and the football is rubbish, I couldn't bare to watch that hoofball to Tom Denton all season. To make it worse, his strike partner was even worse than Wootton. Their winger who I think normally plays RB, looked a good player and had the beating of our left hand side until Rodrigues came on and gave him something to beat. He's on-loan I think. How they let us score that 2nd, I will never know.

1-1. This is dire. No disrespect meant to Chesterfield, but they have to be the worst footballing side I've seen this season. As expected, we are making them look good and not punishing them. At the back they (Chesterfield) are all over the place, defense always about 4 foot away front our front men. Wootton again has been anonymous in the first half, any ball that goes up to him he has lost. If I were Ardley, I'd be looking at taking him off and bringing Sam on. Our midfield decided to drop right off, as if we're playing Juventus or something. We've tried a couple of times to self destruct again, Doyle both times I think, who is being overrun and we need fresh legs in that middle (we don't have any). Their right midfielder, Cropper, has Kelly-Evans' number and is beating him regularly. For the goal, DKE was daydreaming and miles off his man. Enzio was doing his usual prancing about. DKE is also on a yellow, so if Chicksen is fit, we should probably be seeing him sooner rather than later. If we lose this, against a Chesterfield side as poor as this one, I really do despair.

This is my line-up. Don't know the state of McCrory and perhaps harsh to drop Brindley, but he's the only one in that back line that has a decent replacement. Out-of-form Lacey and Rawlinson only starting because the two alternatives are terrible. Doyle is only starting because there isn't an alternative (unless this Wolfe loanee fella is any good). JOB is playing there because the alternative is Enzio. I would play Thomas there but it seems he is unwell. Sam was decent the other night and got his goal. Probably doesn't warrant another start, but there isn't any alternative to an out-of-form Wootton. This line-up again highlights the lack of quality in depth of our squad. Once you look at the amount of starters that are out-of-form, there's nobody to bring in to freshen it up. Crawford we let go, Booty is injured and we let go, I would even bring Mitch Rose in at this stage! We have no winger backup whatsoever. I would have picked Shields should we have made his move permanent.

I am not looking forward to this. Chesterfield are not a good side, unless they've changed drastically from last season (I doubt it, glancing at their signings), and their main tactic will be to lump it up to that lanky player up front. It is an utter dross tactic, but it will no doubt work against us as some of our players aren't up for the fight. Chesterfield to beat us 2-1.

We tried more than once to score for them. Lacey gave it a good go by passing to them under the slightest bit of pressure. Then Reeves had a go selling Slocombe short. Then Slocombe had a couple of goes by coming out and getting nowhere near it, allowing them to nip in. They missed some pretty gilt-edged chances to. Their finishing was as bad as Robert's, luckily for us. I think a lot of our players have the wrong mental attitude. Wootton seems to think that falling over all game was a good tactic, despite the ref never giving him anything at all. Why he persisted with that, god only knows. Thank the lord we had Sam up there, because otherwise nothing would have stuck. Lacey-Rawlinson went from a solid partnership to a mistake waiting to happen. They look less blood and thunder and more like they think they can coast through games. They can't. ******* shocking. As predicted, we have no backup for underperforming players. Who will we swap Lacey for? Cart-horse Turner or error prone Graham? Wootton is out of form and needs a kick up his backside. Enzio might as well be retired the way he glides about. Doyle needs a rest, but who is going to play instead of him? This game has reinforced what I said before it. Ticky tock, change it before this season gets away from us.