menzinho

Blackburn Rovers 1-3 Southampton Millwall 1-1 Leicester City Barnsley 2-1 Rotherham United Reading 1-0 Doncaster Rovers Barrow 1-2 Barnet Harrogate Town 2-0 Newport County 🃏 Forest Green Rovers 3-1 Boreham Wood Hartlepool United 1-2 Solihull Moors

I’m going to the Cheltenham match in a few weeks and that’s at the 'EV Charger Points Stadium', it does sound ridiculous but everyone still refers to it as Whaddon Road. I not a massive fan of totally commercialising at a cost of losing our identity and history but I get the point that for lower league clubs that struggle to make money it feels like a necessary evil right now. I guess when the sponsorship deal ends it’ll go back to being the Haydn Green Family Stand, and there’s nothing stopping fans from referring to it as this but I totally get the point about a bit of marked history gone. It's not a great look.

Cambridge have only won 1 of their 6 matches away from home this season, they've drawn 2 and lost 3. I think that should give us more confidence going into this one, not that we are short on it at the moment. I think again we could see a change or two in the starting line-up and I don't think we'd be any weaker for it. Since Jatta returned our bench has been really strong most matches, it's a challenge just to get into the match-day squad right now for the players. We've definitely looked more comfortable at home recently, and we seem to be starting matches with more intent as we usually look like the team that wants to score first more often than not. I'm hoping this continues come Saturday.

I’m liking Grant under Paterson this season, I think the change in style suits him because one of his biggest strengths is being able to press and force-turn overs. He was very good last night and I like the balance you get with him and Hall. If was being super critical I thought we lacked the ability to control the ball for periods, I think we kept giving it back to the Swindon defence too often when we went direct and it wasn’t effective. Jatta, Hall and Grant had to chase a number of lost causes at times. I think keeping hold more and being patient would’ve been fine because at 2-1 we weren’t chasing the game. Overall I think it’s a good point, 2 of the trickier away matches we’ll have this season and we’ve got 4 points. Win against Cambridge on Saturday and it’ll have been a pretty perfect 7 days. Also can you get yellow cards rescinded? Jatta didn’t actually take his shirt off, at no point does it leave his body nor does it slow the match down or reveal a controversial message. Pretty sure any good lawyer says he was just adjusting his shirt because it was too tight, I’d be happy to put forward a case (and for a much smaller fee than a lawyer would charge!)

I went with Grant, I was pleased to see him actually smash the ball into the net for once. I thought he was pretty good on the ball and showed some lovely touches and link-up play but beyond that he didn’t stop running and pressing all night. I don’t have the stats but I’d be amazed if another player covered more ground than he did.

Still taking in the win from Barnet but we almost have to put it to one side now and focus on Swindon. They've had a good start to the season but tomorrow could be as good a time as any to play them especially as they'll be without their captain Ollie Clarke and they just lost 4-0 to Accrington Stanley. I think we'll see a couple changes to the starting 11, more likely in midfield and upfront, just to keep the side as fresh as possible. No idea if Bedeau is injured or if he was just knackered by the end of the Barnet match but at least we have Ness back now so I'm not overly concerned here. We could be in a really strong position by tomorrow evening if we take all 3 points... That said I'll take a draw!

Barnet put us under pressure, they kept playing forward and putting the ball into the box but on the whole we dealt with it really well. And I know they had 18 shots but how many of them were actually decent chances, one or two? We blocked 7 of them and 11 of their shots were from outside the box too. So we actually limited them very few openings. I think going forward we still need to work on how to deal with an aggressive press. One big bonus is that we didn't play any kamikaze passes our play ourselves into trouble and give away a sloppy goal. But equally we can't just keep clearing the ball and giving it back to the opposition, on another a day a more effective attacking team could've punished us. I think we did get lucky in the end and I mean in terms of our winner, I think we deserved at least a draw for such a solid defence display though. Can't take anything away from Hall, it was an excellent finish and he has really grown into the team now. I’ve not heard a moan about us missing Didzy for sometime now so that is a massive compliment. On the subs, they have been really effective this season, almost to the point that I can’t remember us ever being so effective when it comes to making subs… Is this partly down to the technical board? At the start of the season when it was first announced they said: “The Technical Board will also develop a process to support the coaching team in making more effective in-game decisions. This will involve supplying a variety of data-led metrics, analysis and insights to the dugout in as near to real-time as possible”. Surely can't just be coincidence?

True, but I think when you have a keeper that is confident enough to come and take crosses it takes the pressure off the defence to head everything away. He was solid yesterday but I would still like to see Roos try and be a bit more pro-active when it comes to dealing with crosses. I just feel like a keeper has such a big advantage here, they can jump with their hands in the air and get comfortably higher than any player can with their head.

I thought it was a match where the intensity was there but the quality wasn't, we were definitely better in the second half but we defended really well through-out and then got that slice of luck right at the end. We lost a lot matches like Barnet did yesterday, I feel like we've been on the wrong side of a 1-0 score line too many times, about time we started getting some in our favour!

I thought Roos had a solid game, credit where it’s due he got a clean sheet and his save for the snap shot from Ndlovu in the first half was excellent. I don't think he was overly tested though because I thought our back three defended our box superbly. It was between Macari, McDonald and Bedeau for me and I think McDonald just shaded it.

We aren't many teams bogey team but in recent seasons I feel like we definitely are for Barnet... I can even remember playing them in League 2 before we both got relegated we played with 10 men for over 80 minutes and we still beat them! I hope this continues, but they a much better since Dean Brennan took over them. They have already beaten Swindon, Grimsby and Crewe this season so I think today will be tough, but we are in a good run of form too. I hope the little break means everyone is refreshed and ready to get a good result. If anything there's probably even more competition for starting place now, so I'll be intrigued to see the team sheet shortly. COYP!

I think he's looked a little bit more confident recently but in the last couple of matches he wasn't overly tested, especially with set-pieces and this was still really obvious in the Crewe match. I’m wondering if he actually struggles to judge where the ball will land when it’s in the air. When he punches the ball it’s usually because he’s stretching for it (or charging from under his crossbar). If he was able to read the flight of the ball better and position himself better in the first place he might stand more of a chance of actually claiming the ball. When you compare him the other keepers in the league in terms of stats right now he’s not exactly coming out on top for anything (apart from shots faced, but that tells you more about the defence than the keeper and I’ll go into that in a minute). In terms of save percentage, high claims, goals prevented, he’s lurking in the bottom half of the table for most things. Compared to Bass (and this doesn’t help him!) who last season was one of the best keepers in the league statistically. That's not to say Roos can't improve, I really hope he will but I'm just not sure. Bass was really good last season and that's kind of affected how we are looking at Roos. In terms of how much he had to do he was up there with Morecambe’s keeper, Newport’s keeper, Carlisle’s keeper and MK Dons' keeper. A bit strange to see a team that finished 6th tied in with the really poor teams from last season! At the other end of the scale you had Wimbledon’s, Walsall’s, Doncaster’s and Port Vale’s keepers, they generally had a lot less to do most matches… The only good thing for us now is that in terms of having to make saves Roos is at right end of the scale, which means our defence right now is actually doing better than last season.

Birmingham City 2-1 Hull City West Bromwich Albion 2-2 Preston North End Blackpool 1-2 Wycombe Wanderers 🃏 Doncaster Rovers 2-0 Northampton Town Grimsby Town 1-0 Gillingham Newport County 1-2 Cheltenham Town Altrincham 1-1 Woking Brackley Town 1-3 Gateshead

I agree with the hits, I’ve liked what I’ve seen from all three of them so far and I’ve been impressed with both Iorpenda and Hall in what is effectively their first proper run of competitive football. I perhaps wouldn’t go as far as saying Kouhyar, Bennetts and Norburn are misses. I think I’d stick them in the neither, but I think part of that is that I’ve not seen a lot of them. I think Bennetts is most likely to be a hit by the end of the season and in his last two matches I’ve been impressed by Kouhyar. Norburn has had good and bad games, but I think part of that is him and Palmer seem to clash when they play together. I’d be tempted to put Cotter in the miss section; he’s like a more athletic and physical version of Gordon but sloppier on the ball. And he scares me when he’s defending.

I was just thinking that @theAnticlough as bad as it is for Jayden we aren’t exactly short of players who could replace him. We’ve seen Hall and Iorpenda seemingly as the two favourites now but Jarvis, Grant and Kouhyar should all be desperate to force their way into the space he's left. I do feel for Jayden though, because he was just starting to look like he’d have a big part to play for us this season. The statement just says knee and I hope it’s something not as bad as an ACL, we’ve not had much luck with those recently and they can be hard to come back from.

I might be in the minority here and I totally get it’s effective and legal but I don't like it… Maybe in part because it's not something we've done but it's caused us problems! For me it’s like watching rugby, launch the ball as close to the target as possible and get all the biggest blokes around it to force it in. I don’t see much skill in it, aside from being able to throw a ball far, the goals are almost always goal mouth scrambles and then you always get told it’s a really poor goal to concede. But is it though? What can you honestly do if it’s like a mosh-pit in the box and the opposition are just physically stronger than you? Football does seem to go in cycles though, so the more and more it gets used eventually teams should be better at defending it. If it becomes less effective, they’ll be something else that takes its place.

I think we are seeing the best version of Matt Palmer right now, he wasn’t bad last season but he’s like a completely new player this season. I’m not sure footballers really react to be shouted at anymore, if anything you’d probably get a worse response if you were to point and jab and just criticise. A bit of geeing up or being told to switch on or wake up is fine, but constantly going on at certain individuals won't necessarily improve their performance. I think leading by example and setting the standards first on the training pitch and then on matchdays is what you want to see from a captain and I'm sure Palmer fits this to a tee.

Well, a comprehensive 6-2 victory for Brackley! Woking played with 10 for about 70 minutes even so, that’s an impressive score-line… I’ve changed my mind, can we play Woking instead! So, who's going to try and get tickets for our trip St James Park? (Don't let the sat-nav set itself automatically!)

Really great achievement for them, I heard a short bit about this on the radio at lunch today where they interviewed one the players called 'Pico'. He's actually born and raised in Ireland but his father was from Cape Verde and he was approached to play for them via LinkedIn!

Impressive to have roses still out at this time of year (assuming you took the picture recently @Piethagoram !) Yes, it’s suddenly got darker, cloudier and greyer and I don’t like it! Where I am it’s been cloudy since Friday, we’ve had pretty much no sun since early last week. I can feel a change in my mood, I think because of how lovely the weather has been since the spring not feeling or seeing the sun has put my body into a state of shock. And to make it worse my partner has gone back to Spain for a week to see her family, where it’s 24° and sunny in Logroño. So I’m jealous but I have the flat to myself after I work I can do as I please, that means I can eat what I want, watch what I want and walk around with nothing on (it’s too cold for that actually!)

I do think the goalkeeper position is the most unique, most teams now a days usually sign a goalkeeper with the intention of them being the first choice. It’s kind of the one position that doesn’t really get changed that much. That’s not to say the back-up keepers shouldn't be capable of challenging though, but more often than not they are there to step in when an injury occurs. We've found ourselves in a slightly strange scenario, where our first choice isn’t as good as we hoped and Griffiths isn't seemingly quite ready to be the main man yet. So it's a bit of a dilemma, with no obvious answer. Just from a boring budget point of view it doesn’t make any sense to have two proven goalkeepers because you’ll potentially be paying a lot of money for someone to sit on the bench for the majority of the season and that's just bad business. But by January, we might find ourselves in that scenario…

It's the replay for that match tonight, they drew 1-1 at Woking at the weekend. Think I'd prefer a Brackley win, only because we've never played them (I think) and they are closer! No idea who'll come out on top, both teams are down the bottom of the National League with not much between them right now. It's not a bad draw either way though, we’ve got a side that’s even stronger since the time we were in the National League so we have a really good chance of progressing into the second round.

Right now I'm torn between 4th-7th or 8th-12th. But, at the start of the season, I predicted that we'll either do better than last season or we'd have a shocking season and we'd finish somewhere like 17th... I can't see us finishing that low now, so I'll go with the more positive outlook!

Burton Albion 1-2 Bolton Wanderers 🃏 Exeter City 1-1 Reading Leyton Orient 2-1 Doncaster Rovers Wigan Athletic 0-1 Wycombe Wanderers Chesterfield 1-2 Salford City Crewe Alexandra 1-1 Bromley Fleetwood Town 1-0 Harrogate Town Tranmere Rovers 2-3 Barnet

Now this would worry me a lot, because that is a lot of money to lose and it doesn’t exactly make it appealing to investors. They are seemingly quite confident they've got a plan to fix it but I'm not so sure... By the sounds of it they are pinning everything on getting outside investment and I'm not sure what they'll actually do other than simply be used cover the losses. I've just had a quick look and Burton don't own the land the stadium is built on so it's not like they can easily start doing things like hotels, restaurants, sports courts as another way of bringing in revenue... How do you get a club that an average attendance of just over 4,000 to be profitable (or at the very least sustainable) and competitive in League 1 (or League 2 for that matter), it's a mammoth task.