menzinho

I don’t think there’s much that separates a number of our better performers last night, majority would’ve scored 6 or 7/10 from me. If Grant had scored, he would’ve been my MotM but I can’t look past his poor finishing. Platt just edges the rest for me.

Just catching up with some of the reaction from yesterday, here’s Mark Stallard’s thoughts: "It will be a big loss if David McGoldrick is not available next week. Not sure if they will appeal Alassana Jatta's red but he hasn't been in the greatest form. We are not out of it, we know what we have to do, attack and win the game. We've shown in the second half that we can get at Wimbledon. They did everything but score, they created three, four and five chances. Owen Goodman was player of the match and rightly so. The tie is very much alive but it's a mountain to climb for Notts. It's in the balance, it will take a monumental effort but it's doable." I do agree with Stal and with what he says about Jatta's current form. Hasn’t looked the same player these last few matches, it’s like he’s 5 yards off where he should be every time and he hasn’t won as many of the physical battles which earlier in the season he was doing. He has been great for the majority of the season though and we haven’t had the luxury of being able to rest him at all. Could you imagine if we have to start with Morias and Traore next Saturday, talk about the chance to become cult heroes.

A close match, but one where nothing fell in our favour. First half played out as expected, but second half we created the first big chance and Grant should’ve put us 1-0 up. Can’t help but a feel a tad sorry for him because apart from his awful finishing he put in a pretty good performance. I think Jatta’s red is harsh, he’s being pulled back which kind of forces him to lunge in. Having now watched it back the challenge looks a lot worse than was, he didn’t make any contact. I feel like I’ve seen worse challenges than that this season not even receive a card. No idea how the appeals work but if they take what happened after into account it won’t get rescinded. We edged it performance wise and in terms of creating the better chances, probably should’ve been us with the 1-0 win and that’s pretty gutting.

I do think we’ll need to change something going into this match as we have been really poor at home recently. I would like to see Jodi and Jarvis play as proper wide attackers but that would require a switch to a back 4 and I’m not expecting it to change that drastically. I think we’ll play ultra-safe, I can see Austin coming in at RWB in place of Gordon. Jatta upfront with Didzy and Grant behind. The rest of the team will be the usual, falling into a 5-2-2-1 more often than not. Genuinely I’ll be impressed if one team manages 3 goals over the two legs. It’s got a 1-0, 1-1 vibe all over it for me. I’m almost 99% certain we won’t score in the first half, I don’t bet but I feel like I should (please prove me wrong here Notts!) That said I’d love us to start in a manner that really gets us fans going, trying to pin them in, pressing high and playing balls to get them to defend. I’ve not seen us play like that for a long time… I think if we recycle the ball too much and worry too much about possession it will frustrate the crowd and encourage the Dons.

I am trying to not be totally negative, but after our recent performances where we’ve only managed to beat the poorer teams in the league and then struggled against everyone else at home these past few months, it’s hard see a complete turn-around of fortunes in 6 days. I know Wimbledon aren’t in great form either, but they did draw with both Doncaster and Chesterfield away recently. The Bradford match is my flicker of hope, but that still shows us how much we rely on Didzy… Someone did remind me today that we don’t technically have to win any of our matches, we could draw all 3 but then win 2 on a penalty shoot-out! Can we get Archie Mair back on a 2-match deal?!

Even though it didn't turn out as he would've hoped it does sound sound like everything at Swansea wasn't as rosy as it was made out to be. He still got to be the head coach of a Championship club and test himself against other better coaches and work with some top players so he'll have a learnt a lot from his time there. I don’t think the door is totally closed to him returning to us in the future, this is a head coach that left us in 5th and we got a lot of money for. I wonder if the fact he is doing nothing might be giving the brothers a few pressing thoughts… I would say Bristol Rovers would seem like a possible next job as he lives in South Wales but they are seemingly a bit of basket-case club too. I think he was spoilt with how well run we are!

Even though Salford fell at the last hurdle, I’m still not that confident. It does feel like our undoing in the play-offs will be that we will have to play a team that also finished in the play-offs and not one that finished 19th. And now we’ve got the issue of not being able to win at home right now. My expectations are so low I don’t I don’t think I can be disappointed because losing to Wimbledon over two legs feels like the most probable outcome. We scraped past them at home with a 1-0 win scoring from a corner, I can’t remember anything else about that match so it can’t have been a thriller. And then away they comfortably beat us 2-0. I’d argue they are a slightly better team than us as against the rest of the top 7 they have 3 wins and 4 draws, we have 2 wins and 3 draws…

Not a tough one today, sadly. Abbott for me too.

There is something so gutting about seeing a winner’s podium being erected at our home stadium but it being for the opposition. Fair play to Donny and congrats on winning the league, a really good end to the season for them. Hard to believe that only 6 matches ago we were 2 points behind them… I’m just so discouraged that in a big match where we packed out Meadow Lane we put in another really poor performance. First half was particularly bad, not just because we conceded two goals but because I could not believe our only way to attack was to get the ball out to Gordon so he could put in a hopeful cross. What has happened to all our inventive attacking play?

Bolton Wanderers 2-0 Stevenage Mansfield Town 2-1 Exeter City Northampton Town 0-1 Wigan Athletic Wycombe Wanderers 1-2 Stockport County Colchester United 1-0 Barrow Crewe Alexandra 2-0 Walsall Grimsby Town 1-1 AFC Wimbledon Newport County 0-0 Tranmere Rovers

I'm not sure if playing Doncaster after they've been promoted gives us much of an edge now. There's no pressure on them, they have got the title to play for but it's not a disaster if they don't win it. Part of me thinks if they were still going for promotion they'd be a lot more nervous and cautious. I'm hoping it's not going to be like when Stockport turned up just after they secured promotion last season And we've only won 1 from our last 6 home matches and that 1 win was against a really poor MK side, Doncaster are a lot better and I believe they have the best away record too, eeek! I know autos are still a faint possibility but we've got the toughest match by far, a lot will have to fall in our favour. I just want to see a good performance really. I think the play-offs are the most likely outcome so it would be nice if we can go into them off the back of an encouraging result.

Right now if we were to get promoted, I wouldn’t feel particularly confident about next season. My biggest concern is how the majority of our points from this season have been gained against teams in the bottom half of the table, we won’t get that luxury in League 1. In my opinion it would mean we would be relying heavily on the summer recruitment to be spot on. We would need another top striker, another top number 10, another top midfielder and another top centre back… As a minimum. Our recruitment is generally very good but to add several key players all in one go would be a challenge. Wrexham and Stockport are a bit of an anomaly for me, particularly Wrexham, but both have spent money only we could dream of. I think we'd be fine in terms of a decent budget though, our average attendance right now would see us as the 8th highest in League 1 (And this would increase even more if we were to be promoted). I think we can take a bit of hope from Crawley though, they did a lot better than I thought given they had their team dismantled prior to the start of the season. I don’t think we would be in a scenario anywhere like that, if we don't lose any key players it's easier to build on. The four relegation spots in League 1 are a killer though, especially right now as it’s such a strong league. If we went up and someone somehow was able to offer us 20th position, I’d 100% take it.

They have pretty much carried the team in terms of goal-scoring this season. Jodi despite barely playing all season is our 3rd top scorer with 5... That's quite a drop off. Whatever league we are in next season we do need other players to step up a bit when it comes to putting the ball into the back of the net.

I’m also desperately hoping Salford don’t finish in the play-offs, I’ll dread that fixture if it happens. They’ve just got us completely figured; we’d need to change it up if we are to face them again. I am starting wonder if that FA Cup loss a few years back has given us some sort of deep-rooted scaring... The potential Bradford, Wimbledon & Walsall matches all feel like pretty drab affairs in which one team wins by a goal. Grimsby have the worst defence out of all the teams that can qualify, that would do for me.

Be funny if that goal didn’t win our goal of the season (I think it will though). Our shortlist will basically be a Didzy show-reel with Abbott’s Accrington and Cheltenham goals. I think he can count himself a tad unfortunate not to win League 2's Young Player of the Season. Now, I’m not dissing Nathan Lowe who is a great player, but surely the winner should be a player who has actually played the whole season in League 2