Super_Danny_Allsopp

Some fantastic defending by Brindley there to allow Harrogate their first. /Sarcasm

3rd tier in Scotland? Nice. Career on the up. Worrying that article says he's a natural defender. Not sure that maps with what i saw of him.

About as inept of a notts performance as I can remember.

We need a goalkeeper who is comfortable in possession and distribution. He has to be calm and composed. Slocombe has been a great servant to the club and has transformed himself into this role, however he is getting older and it isn't his natural game. Stone isn't good enough consistently with his distribution and he is far too erratic in decision making. Tiernan Brooks still injured?? At least 2 CBs that are good defensively and decent with the ball. Cameron, Brindley, Rawlinson and Chicksen are all fine at this level, but if we're serious about challenging for promotion, none of them are L1 standard, IMO. We need a central midfielder, desperately. Palmer is a big miss. Bostock is immense, but he's prone to knocks. O'Brien is a good backup, but he can't play 90 every game. Austin isn't comfortable in that position and gosling is a waste of a shirt. 4 signings minimum for me. GK, CB X2, CM.

It's not just you

I stand at the top of the Kop. Still you will get the odd person, particularly when it is full, that will buy one or two tickets at the top of the Kop without realising everybody around them is going to be standing for the entire game. Either the top of the Kop, or in the centre of the Kop, is the best place acoustically and in terms of getting other fans to join in. I am fully for the allocation of an area to be safe standing. It will increase the atmosphere and allow for those that do want to stand, to do so without being moaned at by somebody who booked their ticket in the wrong place, or on the odd occasion the stewards decide they're not happy with us standing. The placement is key. If they put it at the far end of the pavis next to the family stand, nobody will go. It's Kop or nothing, for me.

Slocombe - 6.5 - Decent, don't think he stood much of a chance with either goal. Some odd decisions with distribution at times. Brindley - 6.5 - Decent. Bit slow in picking a pass at times. Baldwin - 7.5 - Very good yesterday. Cameron - 6.5 - Did OK. Nemane - 6.5 - He's brilliant one moment and infuriating the next. Randall - 6 - He was fairly tidy, but he didn't do much. Bostock - 7.5 - Bosses the centre of the pitch with his technique. We are a different team when he is in it. JOB - 7 - Very good performance from JOB. His runs can open a lot of things up and he does have an eye for a pass. Crowley - 8 - Twists and spins, with so much skill. Really is a player and a half. McGoldrick - 7.5 - You can recognise he's played levels above this. Cross-field ball to Nemane was special. What he tries doesn't always come off, and his finishing is a bit hit and miss at times. Langstaff - 8 - His movement is tireless and he carved them up first half. Special player. Rawlinson - 7.5 - Don't think he put a foot wrong when he came on. TAR - 4 - Not a great performance, defensively naïve and not able to get the better of his man offensively. Gosling - 1 - Useless. Looked like a player somebody who had dragged in from the pub before the game. Gives the ball away and doesn't even bother to chase back. Morias - 6 - Lots of energy when he comes on.

Wasn't he rapid, or supposed to be, but fairly young?

This is a problem in the social media age. Normally, when you criticise a player to your mates down the pub, 3 or 4 people hear your argument. However, Tom has amassed thousands of followers online, much to his credit, and I imagine the reach of whatever he posts is in the order of several magnitudes of that. Therefore, when he posts on social media outlets that Rawlinson had a bad game, which he has done numerous times, and even goes to the extent of suggesting his replacements, which he's done numerous times, you can imagine Rawlo might not react too kindly to it. Additionally, there's a collaboration of a few accounts that have also said similar things, with even bigger reach. Rawlo is well within his rights to have a pop back. You can't sit there naiively and tell thousands of people you think somebody should be replaced in their job and still think you can be everybody's friend.

I can see why. The young lad presents his views as if he's an expert on all these things so I can see why people might get annoyed. However, Connell shouldn't be weighing in on the lad, regardless of his opinion or how many pints he's sunk. The lad looks early 20s or younger and is a Notts fan, bite your tongue and move on.

He did it while closing down one of their defenders. Not clear if he over extended his leg, or if the impact came when his leg hit the ground. Held his knee thereafter.

The standard is higher than the NL.. Even the teams (and excluding Sutton here) that play more direct, can pass it around too. You can see the technical ability of the players, in general, is higher. That's not to say some of the teams were anymore effective than some we've played in the NL, but they certainly have the potential to be. Sutton gave us a thrashing, but they were far and away the worst technical side of the bunch we've played thus far and are very NL... hit it long, run the channels, big, physical, but can't string 10 passes together. Donny had something like 10 players out. If we had 10 players out, we'd be struggling to field a starting 11, let alone a bench. Morecambe, who we failed to beat, looked really very average. They then went and smashed Bradford 3-0. Crawley, everybody's favourites for NL-hell next season, beat current league leaders MK Franchise. Just over a week later, they got smashed 6-0 by Swindon. Strange results like those are more of a common occurrence in L2 where the standard is much closer between teams than it was in the NL; ourselves and Wrexham were head and shoulders above most of the league last season, hence the point tally. In 2020/21, we got to a playoff semi-final having given Jimmy Knowles 29 games that season. Mansfield wouldn't give him a game. That gives you an idea about the difference between NL play-off team and a mid-table, play-off pushing L2 side. I've seen many a fan of our fellow League 2 sides who haven't started as well as they'd like, fall into the same logical trap; the table lies and isn't representative, but they've played sides that are in the top x in the table. You can't have both. I do agree that the table lies in August. Donny won't finish bottom. Stockport won't finish in 19th. Wrexham won't finish in 16th. I think Grimsby were a better litmus test to where we are - they are probably a mid-table, upper-mid table, perhaps play-off push team. We beat them at home, albeit with a bit of a struggle. That's probably where we roughly are at the present moment. Any kind of decent test though, needs more than one run. I think Accrington on Saturday will give us another idea of where we're at. MK Dons the week after also. Get through those with 3 or 4 + points, and we can become more confident. Come away with 0-2 points, and it'll be a reality check. A long way of saying, 'not a scoobie'.

From where I stood behind the Kop, he chested it expecting contact that never came and threw himself to the floor. Player reactions on both sides indicated the same, but also I've not seen the incident back

Agree about Palmer. However anyone that dives and does it that badly doesn't deserve an 8.

Rawlo had a difficult opening 20 or so minutes wrestling with their striker, but he won more than he lost. After that, he won almost everything and got a goal. 8 for me. Cameron down .5 for his fall on the ball trick which didn't work (again!). Crowley up .5 for me. He wasn't always involved today, but the balls he plays in are excellent and strangely enough, he wins the ball back countless times by doubling up defensively and getting a nick on the ball to get the ball from the opposition. Underappreciated for that side of his work. One note on the tactics: the long ball to TAR works and he wins his fair share of headers, but Langstaff never makes a run in behind so TARs headers almost always just fall to the opposition. Leaves me a bit puzzled as to why we do it.

It looked to me a definite cross that was never going close to the goal, so strange to see it given to JJ. Happy for JJ nontheless.

I'm puzzled as to what the Tipton loan is about, he doesn't make the squad. As for Baj, it's a bad injury to have because he covered that defensive midfield option and a ball playing centre back.

We certainly have improved since Sutton, but it'd been hard not to. I still expect our results and performances to be up and down a bit. In part that's due to the nature of the league; in the national League a draw or a loss were the end of the world, however in L2 you will see them much more regularly. The other factor is still a settling in period, both as a team and individually, a new league with a bit higher tempo will still catch us off guard.

He was fairly threatening on the day and had something about him. There was another lad, tall, gangly black youth. He looked good too. Couldn't quite tell if he was a chaos maker but a headless chicken, ala Elisha Sam, or he had genuine quality.

Stone - 8 - though he made some excellent saves and let down for the clean sheet. Distribution good on the whole. Baldwin - 6.5 - Decent, too many wayward simple passes. Brindley - 9 - Again excellent in that role. Reads the game so we'll and his technical ability is excellent. Cameron - 6.5 - Good on the whole, couple of cameron-esque mistakes. Not sure how he didn't get a yellow for diving on the ball and purposely handelling it. Austin - 7.5 - A bit quiet in the first half, but his constant energy caused them issues in the second. Good deliveries. Crowley - 7 - more quiet than usual, but kept it tidy and put some great balls in the box. Palmer - 7 - quiet, but kept things ticking. Bostock - 7 - looks a step above at times, however always has an error in him and almost did a Boreham wood V2 where he sells the defender short on a pass. Jones - 8 - Menace down that side and got the goal he deserved. Mcgoldrick - 5.5 - Didn't really work for him today. Langstaff - 8.5 - Almost got his hat trick and was a little bit more involved in some play today. Warrior. JOB - 5 - Looked good when he came on, but caught on the ball in our own box to surrender our clean sheet with seconds remaining. Nemane - 6 - Didn't do a lot going forward, but tidy enough elsewhere. Rawlo - 6 - Decent. Chicksen - 6 - Steady. Scott - 6.5 - Thought he looked good when he came on. Few nearly moments.

Having watched the highlights, he didn't do as good a job as I thought he did in person.

Richardson was OK for us in the team and position he played. However, he can't defend. His defensive decision making (and not just that one), plus positioning - were dire. I was surprised to see him sign for Aberdeen.

I imagine his injury record might have been a factor.

You wouldn't, as in.... most normal clubs wouldn't. They've been trying since the day after Mullin got injured. Why? Moneys not an object.

Think DKE was great for Notts - 110% every game, blood and thunder. We all loved seeing him completely wipe out an opposing attacker, then in the resulting melee pick a fight with their biggest player, swiftly followed by a DKE yellow. However, it doesn't take Jimmy Sirrel to be able to see that technically he was fairly limited going forward, and he is about 5 foot 2. The first point, can't attack, means he isn't going to be a wing-back. The second point, lack of height, means he isn't going to be a CB. In a Luke William's Notts side, he doesn't have a position to fill. Wish him the best in his career, hopefully he can make it back to the FL again.