menzinho

Burnley 1-1 Derby County Portsmouth 3-2 Blackburn Rovers Blackpool 2-2 Plymouth Argyle Luton Town 1-2 Bradford City Accrington Stanley 1-0 Newport County 🃏 Northampton Town 1-2 Rotherham United Eastleigh 2-1 Carlisle United Halifax Town 1-1 Sutton United

This is not going to be any easy fixture for us, I know we are pretty well drilled defensively but we are yet to keep and clean sheet and I’d rate our chances of it happening at Reading quite low. They’ve scored a minimum of 3 goals at home this season, including scoring 5 against Mansfield so it’s going to be a tough test for us. They’ve got the current league top scorer in Jack Marriott and the dreaded long throw-in tactic courtesy of Randell Williams. I’d quite happily see a 0-0 draw but the problem is it looks the least likely score-line this afternoon! I hope I’m wrong but if I had to bet, I’d say home win.

PONdle #16 — 5/6 — 7 letters 🟨⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛ 🟨🟨🟩⬛⬛🟩🟩 ⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Play PONdle

I was never overly worried that Martin Patterson would leave, I think a Championship club would consider him a bit of a gamble, especially one like Burnley who basically want to go back into the Prem as quick as possible. That said the new contract is completely deserved and I hope he's here until 2029, and who knows maybe even beyond that! I know he doesn't show it but I think Martin is very happy here and I feel like he fits here perfectly too. Notts, because of the set-up, just let him focus on coaching. He mentioned at the fans forum that recruitment isn't what he considers a strength of his, he just wants to coach and improve the players. He's done a great job so far and with him at the helm I think we'll be able to make that gradual improvement year on year.

PONdle #13 — 2/6 — 8 letters ⬛🟩🟨🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Play PONdle

I thought this too, especially as they’ll be more international breaks over the season. I really don’t think turning 2 Saturday matches into mid-week fixtures is beneficial, we’ll go from getting a week to prepare to just a few day and players are potentially less fresh for them too. Be interesting to see who has been called up, depending on who it is, I wonder if we could've still played the matches?

I’m pretty sure it’s Radio Nottingham who do the interviews, surely they could request to talk to one of the players? I’d be interested to hear the players thoughts, a bit like Martin Partinson’s post match, they’d never give everything away but you get a different perspective because the players are the one’s playing. We, like Martin Paterson, are only watching. And if it just went out live on the radio, no Notts social media involvement, you’d avoid the social media negativity.

PONdle #12 — 4/6 — 5 letters ⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛ ⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Play PONdle

In the second half we never really clicked for some reason, our short passing was poor and the direct passing even worse. We kind of got dragged into a slogging battle with Bradford as the match went on, with the last 20 being the worst of it. Bradford were just happy to whack it long and we just kept giving it back to them. The Powell v Ness battle, where they were both as bad as each other to be fair, was erm, something. I thought we really struggled out wide and agree with @theAnticlough about the right-hand side being worse off. I can’t put my finger on it but my guess is that Bradford prepared for the inverted wingbacks better than the other opposition so far, because they really stifled us here. I wanted Tsaroulla to go at Touray more especially after he got booked early on, but we proceeded to put very little pressure on him for the rest of the match. As for the last 30 minutes or so, I actually thought we looked worse with two upfront, because it made us play more direct and we didn’t do it effectively, instead of playing balls in behind/into the channels we just kept forcing Kanu and Smyth into duels. We were also limited in the middle of the pitch and that is just through injuries. I get why Cooper was dropped deeper but I think he’s much better higher up the pitch. I think with either Robbo or Palmer alongside Finneran we’d have been able to get a bit more control and we’d have been more dangerous with Cooper higher. There still wasn’t much between the sides, it wasn’t a great match, I think if that gets played another 9/10 times in that way it finishes 0-0.

Middlesbrough 2-1 Norwich City Preston North End 0-1 Lincoln City Cambridge United 1-1 Reading 🃏 Plymouth Argyle 2-0 Barnsley Colchester United 0-1 Crewe Alexandra York City 1-3 Swindon Town Halifax Town 1-2 Hornchurch Yeovil Town 1-1 Fylde

Considering some of the teams last season I still thought we were one of the better footballing sides, but the difference was we were more flexible. Take the play-offs, we were kind of happy to let Chesterfield have the ball because we’d worked on the out of possession shape and we knew we could create chances from pressing. Then in the final, given it was 30°+ it’s virtually impossible to play an effective press so we switched back to a more possession-based style. Salford were very much an up and at you team under Robinson and they didn’t adapt. Now we aren’t side the is 100% committed to trying to always have possession of the ball, we can be just as effective without it. It’s a double edge sword, but in a good way for us! Against Huddersfield we were more focused in our out of possession play and we came away with a point. Against Burton home (second half) we showed we are still capable of dominating the ball and creating chances through good passing play. It’s the best of both worlds right now and I think it’s going to serve us well this season.

PONdle #8 — 4/6 — 7 letters 🟨🟨⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛ 🟨⬛🟨🟨🟩🟨⬛ ⬛⬛⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Play PONdle

PONdle #7 — X/6 — 8 letters ⬛🟨🟩🟨🟨⬛🟨🟨 🟨🟨⬛⬛🟨⬛🟩⬛ 🟨⬛🟨⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨⬛🟨⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨⬛🟨⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 Play PONdle Once I got the ending, I just could not think of any other player that fit. How do I see who it was supposed to be?

5 goals in 7 matches, if he carries on in that sort of form he'll be the leagues top scorer! Clearly been a great start for him there, let's hope it continues.

I think he's more suited to the matches where we have less of the ball and our out of possession play and press is more important. That said he wasn't too shabby in possession either, but he seems to thrive more when he's chasing down and getting stuck into opposition players. I know it's early days but they are the best side we've faced this season, they edged it terms of play and chances, not saying we didn’t deserve the draw because I think it was a fair result, but they have a lot of top-level League 1 players and at times it really showed. We got a tad lucky with the double goal-bound blocks first half, but credit to Ness and then Gibbons for being alert and stopping what looked a certain goal. In that middle period of the second half, we were under a lot of pressure and struggled to get out and I just thought there’s a goal coming for them here, but credit to the lads we defended really well and the subs of Smyth, Mustapha, Grant and Ishe helped us re-energise and relieve a bit of the pressure. To still be unbeaten is really impressive, we've adjusted to life in League 1 better than I imagined!