menzinho

With the goal difference swing, we need all the help we can get right now. So for one night only I'm team Bromley. 0-0 with 15 left to play as I type...

Port Vale losing £6 million for the privilege of one season in League 1 was so not worth it. Fleetwood with a small fanbase and such big losses isn't good either. In fact it makes for pretty dreadful reading, a bar chart with the bars all facing the wrong way... Who'd be a football club owner eh?

There was a lot wrong with last weekend’s performance, mostly defending set-pieces, but luckily Barent aren’t a big physical side and in theory shouldn't worry us in that way. But they are still a good side who have beaten Cambridge and MK Dons recently and with an outside chance of play-offs they’ll need the 3 points as much as we do… Should be a cracker, but we thought that last weekend! I think Jatta is still missing, so purely for his goal threat I’d have Dennis starting. I wouldn’t be against him and Ndlovu upfront, but I would be against a midfield three of Palmer, Norburn and Iorpenda which I think would likely back them up… Right now I’m all for the win-loss run continuing, just for this weekend anyway!

4 goals, 4 set-pieces. Well let’s get this over with quickly. First goal is a mess, but we’ve got Iorpenda, Ness and Macari all marking no-one but the same one bit of space. Second goal, Ness exerts so much effort trying to push Bedeau over he then misses an easy chance to to just head the ball away. Third goal both Ness and Bedeau get beaten to the ball, but fair play it’s a cracking finish, they can have that one. Forth goal, Gibbons is unmarked and we’ve got a player advantage, I’ll say no more… I guess that can be fixed but it’s the manner of the defeat that is so disappointing, this was supposed to be two good teams going toe-to-toe, a chance for us to show what we can do and why we deserve to get that automatic spot. But we just never got going and all our confidence was clearly drained by the time the third goal went in. It's matches like these that really don't fill you with hope with the potential of play-offs looming. I still don’t know what was worse being 3-0 down after 30 minutes or playing a whole 2nd half against 10 and not being able to score, but still concede.

It was a strange one in that the combination of us being so tidy on the ball and Newport being so poor meant the first half wasn’t much a contest in truth. At half-time Newport had a decision to make, carry on doing what they are doing and probably lose 4-0 or go for it and just see what happens. And that’s what they did. We didn’t really adjust to it, first half where we could have maybe 3 or 4 touches turned in 1 or 2 because they actually pressed us. I know we are limited in terms of players but it does seem like some players on the bench are just purely their because we can name 7. I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of Enoru, someone with his pace could’ve been an outlet to turn the Newport defence, I think him and Ndlovu could’ve worked nicely to alleviate some second half pressure. I’ve been impressed with Luker since his return, he kind of showed what we’ve been missing in his 15-minute cameo. He’s not a really lightweight youngster, he’s got a decent turn of pace and obvious skill. I’d be tempted to stick him as one of our starting No.10s because he’ll cause more problems for defenders and actually looks a goal threat. I am just nit-picking here, obviously I’m really happy with the win and performance overall especially because after the way we lost against Salford we could’ve come out looking sorry for ourselves but that didn’t happen.

I’ll say Robertson, but I think this is very optimistic! Even though Newport are down the bottom and aren’t in the best form when they’ve lost matches recently it’s only been by the odd goal. Part of me was thinking that because this match was sandwiched in between Crawley and Harrogate (which are effectively 6 pointers for them) they might treat our match like a mid-week trophy match. But they lost to Crawley, so I think the chances of them resting better players will be slim because they will be desperate to get at least a point. But we usually react well after a defeat, a chance to right the wrongs from Salford and kick start a mini-run that can see us finish top 3. (*albeit now a tad harder by the news of Jatta's ban)

Because I was only watching on the TV I didn’t see anything but I do remember feeling very nervous when there was mini-brawl, with a Salford CB on the floor, all seemingly aimed towards Jatta. He’s accepted the ban, without a challenge, so it’s pretty obvious he’s done something he shouldn’t. I’m almost certain the Salford CBs will have wound him up all match, alongside the usual grabbing and stepping on toes because that’s what a lot do. He’s got to not let it get to him though, or failing that be as sly as them. I’m not enjoying this period of a different player getting banned each week, it’s like we are try to self-sabotage our promotion chances.

Yes, I’ve been following the progress of Artemis II, I didn't stay up to watch the launch but I caught up with it all the next morning. There was a great clip I think of the BBC's science correspondent reporting live at the launch and her childish instincts took over because she was just in total awe of it all, you could tell that it meant a lot to her. I was reading about the Artemis programme and if everything goes to plan Artemis III will launch next year and then Artemis IV will see human's back on the moon. All in preparation to eventually get to Mars, which would be pretty incredible to see.

I've been a fan of Dennis this season but I would agree his performances have dropped these last few matches. I would slightly caveat that yesterday in particular we played a lot of high balls to him and challenging big center backs in the air is not his strength. We should've tried to play more balls in behind for him to run onto... I'm in agreement with everyone else so far for MotM. Belshaw made a really great save down low early in the first half, I was certain it was going in and then his hand appeared from almost no-where and tipped it past the post! Same in the second half, Longelo (who impressed me) cut inside and curled one that was going in the top corner if it hadn't been for Belshaw.

You're right @theAnticlough , for some reason I thought we had 71 points, so that's a slight bonus for me waking up and seeing we've actually got 73! 😆 Just the 5 to go now... I don't think any of the sides in the top 7 have a particularly easy run-in, including us. Newport will be desperate to get something, Barnet have beaten both Cambridge and MK recently and Colchester, whilst they might not have much to play for a bit like Salford have been a bogey side for us. I can see it coming down to the last day against Bristol. I would probably take 82 points if you offered it to me right now, whether that would be enough for an automatic spot, who knows?

It feels like we've got ourselves trapped in a win-one lose-one run right now, if that continues until the end of the season it would give us 80 points. Is that enough? I think we'd fall just agonisingly short.

I know @Robbie , it’s just that is the worst way to lose a match of football. At least if we'd have been 2-0 at half-time I'd have seen it coming! I did think Salford were the better side overall, we got totally overrun first 15 minutes. Palmer, Grant and Iorpenda were all too far apart but once we got Iorpenda back with Palmer and switched back to a 3-4-2-1 we just about managed to get into half-time. If not for Belshaw we probably would've been 1-0 down. Second half shape wise was much better, we looked a lot more solid but in terms of us getting a foothold in the match it never really happened. I know we played direct to stop Salford because they usually press and trap us in so effectively, but the number of times Belshaw kicked the ball straight down the middle was so frustrating. Especially as Salford would play diagonal ball’s that actually turned our wide centre backs and made it hard for us! I thought we'd cotton on to that and try it ourselves, but no we enjoyed playing to Salford's CB's strengths! The injury time goals were crazy, I’m not sure if I’m more annoyed by the fact we conceded both goals from corner’s or that once we scored, with 30 seconds left to play we were not switched on at all.

From absolute elation to despair inside 30 seconds, I don't know what to say right now.

Not to fill you all with dread but our record against Karl Robinson (well his MK and Salford sides) is absolutely awful. We’ve faced off 14 times, in our first match back in 2010 we won 2-0, but ever since then it’s been 2 draws & 11 losses! It’s like he took that first loss personally and vowed to never lose again. We have been totally done by Salford since he joined them; 4 matches, 4 losses and last season in particular we had two dreadful outings against them. I can still see Crowley losing the ball on the edge of our own area when I close my eyes. I hope the technical board have gone into overdrive in preparation for this one, a draw will feel like an almost miraculous result and I’ll take it right now!

Same @Fan of Big Tone Martin has definitely grown on me over the season to the point I think he totally deserves to be here next season regardless of if we get promoted or not. I think the quality overall of the team this season is weaker than last season, yet we’re going to finish up with more points, more wins and the home form has been much improved under him too.

I agree, I think we definitely need to beat at least one of Salford or Cambridge or at least get 2 draws. If we lose both I think then we'd have to win the other 4 matches and rely on other teams to do us a favour. It’s funny how last season all the top 7 teams had a great chance of finishing top 3, but everyone apart from Doncaster and Port Vale had shocking form and basically blew the chance of going up automatically. At this stage last season after 40 matches played with the points we’ve got we’d have been top! This season it’s the complete opposite, no-one has really dropped off, there's a couple of losses here and there but nothing drastic. We could end up with the number of points Doncaster achieved last season and not go up automatically.

We did what we needed too, I agree with Martin’s post-match comments that it was a professional performance. We do react really well after a defeat, but please can we have mini 6 match unbeaten run now! I liked that Dennis came back into the side I thought he was decent alongside Jatta, I just wasn’t super sold on the two upfront, but that was more from an out of possession view. To me it looked like Iorpenda and Tangen (and then Grant) were playing like 8’s - not quite attacking midfielders but a little higher either side of Palmer. At times I thought it was odd that they were aggressively pressing Harrogate’s back line whilst Dennis and Jatta just kind of held their positions. It just looked a bit disjointed to me. Also, the ref let far too much go, I don’t like the ones that constantly blow every time a player goes down but he was the opposite. Even Norburn would’ve struggled to get carded by that ref! He missed the Bennetts foul, anywhere else on the pitch it’s a free-kick. But the most obvious one which we didn’t complain about for some reason was just after Jatta scored, Jodi crossed a really dangerous ball into the box and Dennis was pushed two-handed in the chest by the defender who made no attempt to get the ball… Should've been a red card and a penalty.

I like Tagen, he’s clearly a skilful player he just needs to move the ball a bit quicker at times. I think that just comes with a lack of experience of playing in England where you don’t get much time on the ball. It was a shame he had to go off because it was looking like one of his best games. Maybe it’s just me but Ness makes me nervous, I always feel like we are moments away from a dodgy clearance, bad touch or poor pass. He did play well yesterday though. But I went for Palmer, he linked our attack and defence nicely and pretty much had control of the middle of the pitch throughout.

Losing Platt and now McDonald is going to make ending the season strongly that bit harder. Ness did have a little spell earlier in the season playing in the middle when both Platt and McDonald were out. It’s probably not a bad thing he messed up his back pass in a match that was already lost, I suspect that’ll stop him from doing it for the rest of the season now! Just got to hope he can step up (and not injure himself in doing so). It’s also very quiet regarding Robertson, which makes me think it's not good news about him either.

One for the fans who think the Bros need to spend more money and that they are pocketing the money from our player sales… I’m very grateful they are covering these losses and I hope we can further reduce them because it would just make the future of our football club so much more secure.

I think had we lost 3-0 with 11 players on the pitch I’d be more concerned. Their wasn't much between the sides first half, both teams had good spells. For me we clearly tried to make positive changes at half-time by bringing on Ndluvo, but we didn't get to see if it worked because after 2 minutes we were suddenly one midfielder short and had an excess of forwards. In hindsight we should’ve subbed off Norburn at half-time, of course it’s very easy to say all this after and it doesn’t help we basically only have 3 natural CM’s now and all of them were already playing! Maybe in future matches if Norburn is on a yellow he will be subbed off because he can’t be trusted to not do something stupid. The biggest issue for me was how both goals came from our set-pieces. Are we committing too many players forward? Do we need to leave another player back? Maybe against teams like Oldham we do because if we stop their counter attacks, we make them a lot less dangerous…

First half wasn't that bad, I thought we looked pretty good in spells and yes Oldham were strong in ending the half but going in 1-0 down with 45 minutes still remaining wasn't the worst outcome. But Norburn, again though. Just totally destroyed our chances. We can analyse the second and then third goals, both of our own doings (as was the first for that matter) and they were poor and avoidable, but going down to 10 handed all the initiative to Oldham and made our half-time tactical tweaks redundant. At the end they just mentioned the sponsor from the match and no joke it was; "Get Rid Oldham Waste Management". They could well be going home with Norburn.

Yeah not a great interview from Steve there, he made it sound like they had some double-headed European tie in between that. We both had mid-week matches so it was pretty fair in that respect. They were also 4-2 down by the time Sherring was sent off with just 9 minutes to go, in a half where they had just 2 shots, it was hardly game changing. But I do agree it was never a red. He comes across like a bit of angry old man here, and the way he kind of snaps at the interviewer at the end isn’t great either. Anyway, as for us, second half we really stepped up and completely deserved the win. Some cracking goals, lovely bits of passing and movement too, we are looking good right now.

Yeah, I was well on the way to giving it to our passmaster general himself Matt Palmer. He scored a corker, but it's been overshadowed by Iorpenda’s wonder goal. Tom's energy for the last 30 minutes was phenomenal!

I still think Jatta will be on the bench, especially with Ndlovu back from his suspension. With Tangen, Bennetts, Hall and Grant I feel we have enough players that can fight for the attacking midfield spots. I'd probably go with Tangen and Grant today. And given we are without Robertson, Iorpenda has to be one of the central midfielders now, we’ve basically only got him Palmer and Norburn until the end of the season. I'd start him alongside Palmer again today. The performance against Accrington was great, if we continue playing like that Cheltenham will be in for a tough afternoon. MK Dons already 1-0 up as I type this, I think it's probably just the one automatic space left now, there's little room for error but I'm quietly confident we are up for the challenge!