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PONdle #62 — 5/6 — 7 letters ⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟨⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛🟨 🟨⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Play PONdle

It's good when everyone plays well. My underrated shout out would be to McDonald, not only for his box defending but distribution, he pinged it long across the pitch a couple times very accurately. But my standouts were Robertson and Samuels-Smith, I think just because the way we dominated the midfield it turned the match in our favour, so Robbo shaded it for me.

Really good win, proper team performance where everyone put a shift in. That first goal is what Cal is all about, he's probably the best striker of a ball we've got. I was sad Grant came off injured, but we probably don't score that type of goal with Cal off the pitch. That's his 3rd goal from outside the box now, it's more down to skill, not just luck. And then that second goal is testament to the way we set up to press, to put teams under pressure and force them into mistakes. It’s noticeable how much more aggressive the back 3 are now, they track and stick to the forwards and what I really love is the anticipation when they actually get that little bit in front to win the ball. The did it countless times against the mansfield forwards. I still think Smyth is getting to grips with League 1, it's wasn't a poor header, an inch or so difference and it's in off the post. He’s only played about 25 proper competitive matches prior to joining us but I've been impressed with him. I think his hold up play is really quite good, when we fire it up to him he’s got the ability to chest it down or lay it off.

I was a tad worried that the decent start to the season we had was off the back of the confidence boost from the play-offs. After those first losses a few weeks ago I had a slight concern that we could well slip into a run of losses, especially looking into the back of October with the matches against Sheff Wed, Stockport and Mansfield. But something has clearly clicked again, the side is more settled and the game plan and tactics are nicely balanced. I’m quietly confident we won’t be battling with Bromley to avoid finishing bottom now! Overall I'm really quite pleased, by the end of the season I would still take a 20th place finish, but I’m hopeful we can keep a bit of daylight between us and the relegation spots.

Bolton Wanderers 0-2 Bristol City West Ham United 2-1 West Bromwich Albion Wigan Athletic 1-0 Bromley Wycombe Wanderers 2-1 Burton Albion Fleetwood Town 1-2 Bristol Rovers Shrewsbury Town 1-0 Gillingham Barrow 2-0 Eastleigh 🃏 Tamworth 2-2 Woking

They've got a very experienced side (kind way of saying old!), they definitely lack that bit of pace so I'm hopeful our energetic side will cause them a few problems. I kind of hope we go with the same side we've played for the last few matches, I think the only change I'd consider is Kanu for Mustapha. I'd also take a draw, considering our awful record against them, the last time we beat them at Field Mill in 2005!

I think everyone was a tad surprised when the retained list came out that we'd extended his deal for the extra year. I wonder if the club thought the wingbacks would be an area that was going to be tricky to recruit for so he was kind of a fall-back so we wouldn't have been a player short? The deal is good for everyone, he'll probably start for Kidderminster most weeks if he had stayed I doubt he'd have even made the matchday squad. We should now be seeing Longelo push to get into the side, he was supposed to be the replacement for JJ!

There’s an argument that every outfield player (not a dig a Belshaw, he had very little to do) that started could’ve got it, no-one had a bad game. Can’t just be a coincidence when Smyth plays, on the whole, we get better performances. Kanu looked like player I remember! Midfield were totally dominate, as were the back 3 who won so many of their duels. Ishe got some stick last time out, he was great, done by the end but that wing-back spot is so demanding. I went for Grant though, his link up play and use of the ball was spot on more often than not. If he could just start to chip in with a few goals we’d have some player.

Wow, totally unexpected, I’m not sure how we managed to get such a turnaround in performance so quickly from the weekend but we did! It's eased the thoughts that we were possibly sliding into Martin Paterson's Burton side, because last night’s performance was the opposite. It felt like the plan was more in-kin with what MP had hoped would work from the Oxford match. Except this time, we tweaked it so we weren’t so overrun in the middle of the pitch. The press was a lot more coherent and aggressive. It relied on us winning those duels especially as the back 3 followed the Sheffield Wed attackers when they dropped deep and ended up as high as the halfway line. And we seemed to commit more to passing out from the back, at Wycombe when Belshaw had the ball it went long pretty much every time. Best performance of the season by a mile, we knew this season was going to be tough but results like that make it totally worth it!

It's Altrincham! They won 6-2 against FC United. We'll play them on the weekend that is the 7th Nov. Looks like we'll be seeing a few familiar faces!

AFC Wimbledon 1-1 Mansfield Town Bromley 1-2 Leicester City Burton Albion 0-1 Bradford City Luton Town 2-0 Barnsley 🃏 Crawley Town 1-1 Shrewsbury Town Northampton Town 2-1 Tranmere Rovers Rochdale 1-1 Grimsby Town Rotherham United 1-0 Newport County

Well, we are away from home, somewhere in Greater Manchester, playing the winner of FC United of Manchester v Altrincham. They drew 0-0 at weekend, the replay is tomorrow, so we'll know the exact opponent very soon. I'd have much preferred a home draw, the least they can do for us now is not put us on TV. Can't remember the last time we went to Manchester to play a non-league side, nope, completely blocked it out my mind.

They are currently unbeaten away from home and have scored 2 goals in every away match so far; 1-2 win v Leyton O, 1-2 win v Wycombe, 1-2 win v P’boro, 2-2 v Hudds. Can we at least buck the trend? And by that I don’t mean they score 3 or 4! No idea what the team will be, someone will probably miss out last minute getting injured putting their kit on at this rate. Usually I’d say I’d take the most boring 0-0 ever, but we need to see a team that can at least looking threatening and score, so a not so drab 1-1 will do! Yep, I’m with @Dripsey3 here, I've got nothing other than using all my blind faith! Good results in football sometimes happen when you least expect them.

I can’t remember the last time it took us 74 minutes to have a shot in a match of football, score-line wise today doesn’t look that bad, but to be so uncompetitive for that long is shocking. I feel like maybe Martin took the defeat at Oxford to heart, he wanted us to be aggressive and press, today we got the complete opposite, which was basically to contain and catch them on the break (without the catching them on the break bit). Injuries have been an issue but at the same time I think we panicked when we had the injuries to the CMs early in the season. Now it’s swung the other way, we are totally overloaded in the CM position but down to the bare bones when it comes to attackers. I think we've underestimated that part of the pitch because a well prepared team surely doesn't end up with a front three of Ndlovu, Roberts, and Evans. That felt like a game on paper that was there to get something from, especially when you think Sheffield Wed and Stockport are the next two fixtures, they’ll comfortably be a level above Wycombe and worryingly we were a level below Wycombe today.

30 minutes, in 20% possession, 0 shots, 0 touches in the oppositions box, 37 passes completed. That was the kind of the fear I had when I saw the line-up. I’m not sure how we’ve managed to build such a big squad and still manage to go into matches with the side looking unbalanced.

PONdle #45 — 2/6 — 6 letters 🟩🟩⬛⬛🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Play PONdle

Bristol City 0-1 Sheffield United Norwich City 2-1 Portsmouth Barnsley 1-2 Cambridge United Leicester City 3-2 Doncaster Rovers Leyton Orient 1-0 Blackpool Plymouth Argyle 2-2 Huddersfield Town Colchester United 1-0 Exeter City 🃏 Crewe Alexandra 2-0 Rochdale

Yeah, I feel like the team that ended the Oxford match should start against Wycombe. Although I'd probably switch Gibbons out for McDonald because I think he's been fine at RCB and the CB position is currently Ness' to lose. I’m a bit worried if Cooper is injured after coming off at the weekend and Mustapha hasn’t featured for a while and had to drop out the international fixtures. We would look a tad weak in those No.10 positions, so maybe it is best to continue with Smyth and Kanu upfront, especially if Ndlovu is back. I seem to remember that we've done well at Wycombe over years, and looking it up confirmed it, unbeaten in our last 5 visits. Got to keep that stat intact by 5pm on Saturday.

We needed that! Martin was right in his post-match comments when he said it was a bit of a lose-lose scenario because had we scraped a 1-0 win it wouldn't have alleviated any of the concerns. We needed to look a cut above, and particularly in that second half it you could see the confidence in the players with the one/two touch incisive attacking play. The Cal Roberts through ball for the 4th goal where he put Lupsiuc in was sublime. And just on Darius, I'd like to see him as RWB I think he'd be more comfortable there. When we play with the inverted wingbacks we do lose the ability to put in good first time crosses like that.

PONdle #43 — 4/6 — 7 letters ⬛⬛⬛🟨🟩⬛⬛ 🟨⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛🟩⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Play PONdle

The fact "94% of clubs in the top five English leagues made losses in 2025-26" is really bleak, and then you have additional thing like "17 clubs across the EFL and National League would be loss-making even if their players played for free", how can that be allowed to happen? It's not good at all that clubs are totally reliant on owners. At some point, these owners will have enough of just losing money, then you are left in a situation where you are looking for someone richer to keep covering the losses or it'll be a case of the club being wound up. It might be boring to some but the brothers and Joe Palmer constantly talking about Notts being sustainable and wanting us to be at at a break-even level is only going to make us stronger in the future. Surely at some point the rules have to change so football clubs aren't just reliant on a couple of people basically being the reason for a football clubs existence.

I agree with you @theAnticlough that the back 3 is likely still our best way forward, we looked better when we switched back to the two CMs in Sanders and Finneran, with Roberts and Grant ahead. That is our tried and tested formation, that over the last couple of years has served us really well. I just meant more in terms of specific tactics for the Oxford match, if the plan was to be super aggressive and press with 4 players, it's surely asking for trouble leaving just 1 CM to get totally out-numbered and exposed!

I think I kind of got what we were trying to do first half, we almost had like a front 4 of Cooper, Roberts, Grant and Kanu all pressing hard (well at least supposed to be) with the intent of winning the ball high up. But more often than not we were off the pace by a second or two and it meant that press wasn’t effective and it was quickly bypassed to leave poor Palmer out numbered in the middle. I do wonder if we'd played a back 4, to allow for another midfielder (at the expense of a CB) so a 4-2-4 formation would that have left us less exposed than what at times looked like a 5-1-4? Kanu is a really strange one, he looks nothing like the player I remember at Walsall, not half as quick, strong or skilful as the one that played upfront for them. I can remember playing them at home, it was a bit of stinker 0-0 but they played everyone super deep and basically left Kanu upfront against our 3 CBs. But he still looked quite dangerous, I can remember thinking if they'd actually got someone closer to help him, he'd have probably scored.

Ishe was an odd for me, I thought he started off badly but got better as the match went on. He’s clearly very quick and athletic in the first half at times he’d pick the ball up skip past a player but then do some odd stabby pass that made him look like it was his first time kicking a ball. That was his first start he’s very young but played plenty of times for the England Youth sides, so there’s talent there, it might just take a bit of time for him to adjust to men’s football. Anyway I was kind of torn between Roberts and Ness. Roberts was the brightest spark in our attack and looked most likely to create something for us. I went for Ness because I don’t think he’s best suited to RCB and was up against a tricky winger in Dembele which can be his undoing. He did hack him down once, which I'll overlook because he kept him very quiet.

Blackburn Rovers 1-0 Cardiff City Middlesbrough 2-2 Wolves Huddersfield Town 2-1 Sheffield Wednesday Wycombe Wanderers 1-2 Luton Town Bristol Rovers 1-0 Barnet Cheltenham Town 2-2 Salford City Hornchurch 2-1 Eastleigh 🃏 Tamworth 1-1 Barrow