menzinho

Watched the highlights today (on the DAZN SPORT YouTube page if you are interested) a really impressive attendance for what is the 5th level. I think it was something like the 5th time in a row the National League Play-off Final has gone into extra-time. I'd have been happy to see either back, think Southend have had a tougher time with their ownership issues, but nonetheless welcome back Oldham!

Dennis did play for MK Dons before signing for Carlisle, but yes could be a sign of poor journalism! The return of Cal Roberts would be a too much of a risk for me. We know he is susceptible to injuries and whilst he had a very good season and scored 21 goals it was in the National League North. He's very skilful though but it's still hard to tell how he'd do in the EFL. And I would question where he fits in our current system, but that might be slightly tweaked under a new head coach.

If we exclude the names from fantasy land (Priske and Joao) in the current odds Mike Williamson, as of now, is the second favourite. Really hope not, I’d rather have Stuart back.

It’s that time of year again, with no actual football to be discussed something has to fill all the sports websites... But don’t fret you can keep tabs and discuss all the latest Notts rumours (*that are usually wrong) here. So far we’ve had; McGoldrick to MK? Jatta to Bolton? And now Matthew Dennis to Notts? Sources: Notts County set to beat Port Vale and Walsall to Carlisle United striker - medical booked FOOTBALLLEAGUEWORLD.CO.UK Matthew Dennis is on his way to Meadow Lane, with the Magpies fending off competition from League One and Two clubs

In a way, those stats from above are what I thought might have been his saving grace as our owners seemingly pay close attention to all the stats and data. Maybe if we had been more exciting at the expense of conceding a few more goals he might have been ok. But far too often we were reliant on individuals just being better than the oppositions defence when it came to our attacking play. It’s probably why we did fine against the poor teams but more often than not got nothing against the good ones. We didn’t look like a well-coached attacking unit and in my opinion that’s probably what cost him his job. Both Halifax and Gateshead are looking for a new managers, wouldn't be surprised if he ended up at either.

I don’t think it’ll be any tougher than last season but I agree that it’ll still be competitive towards the top. MK Dons and Gillingham can’t be as bad as they have been next season, especially with the financial backing they have. I’d expect them to do a lot better but other than Salford and Walsall I wasn’t overly impressed with any other the so-called better teams; yet we still failed to beat a lot of them! That is where we’ll need to see an improvement, we were more than comfortable against the weaker sides and usually got the better of the mid-table drifters too but if we want to go up we simply need to start getting more wins against the teams up the top (easier said than done I know). Hard to gauge the teams coming down, they all had pretty tough and bad seasons (their goal differences are in and around -30 or worse which tells a story) sometimes that lack of momentum can carry through into the next season. Shrewsbury would be my pick to be the most likely to repeat the feats of FGR and Carlisle and have back-to-back relegations. Finished rock bottom, got a current owner that can’t afford them and is desperately trying to sell... Not a great place to be in. I still think finishing in the play-offs would be a decent season, as long as this time we go into them and actually feel like we’ve got half a chance of winning them. I think once the head coach is announced and the first lot of signings come in we’ll have a better idea about where we might finish up.

I'm not surprised Morias has left, can't really say he was terrible because he didn't get much of an opportunity but at the same time it certainly wasn't money well spent by the club. As for the current head coach vacancy being an issue, for all we know behind the scenes it could've already been decided, so any potential players could be told who their new gaffer will be next season. And he could've even already suggested some potential targets for the recruitment team to look into... I feel like the club will communicate something to us this week as it's been very quiet so far.

Are you sure? I heard Mourinho was interviewed last week and someone else said they saw Mancini getting a tour around the University of Nottingham 🫣😏

Most shocking thing for me is that Platt never won once!? Have you accidently missed him off? He's been one of our best signings this season, that's quite surprising. And yet Jevani Brown has a win 😵‍💫😲 You can't trust us fans these days!

That is a shame. And not going to lie I will be gutted if later I see a picture of him holding an MK shirt... But it’s not like we’ve been in this scenario before. We’ve lost Wootton, Roberts, Rodrigues, Langstaff, Crowley and yet when you look at the bigger picture we’ve continued to progress upwards. So I’m not too worried, of course it’s not going to be easy to replace him but you can potentially shift the team around a bit more, maybe move both Jarvis and Jodi forward and play with a front three. Who knows, there are plenty of options and I’m sure the recruitment team will have planned that this might happen.

I’d be pretty happy with Hinshelwood if it happens. He certainly ticks a lot of boxes, his style fits and he has completely transformed that York City team. Ever since they got promoted they’ve been fighting relegation then he comes in and in his first season they get almost 100 points, that is incredibly impressive. My only slight concern is how York essentially flunked the play-offs having done so well in the regular reason. Them losing 3-0 (at home) was a massive shock, I think they should've at least got to the final. People talk about the mental resilience you need to do well in football in those big pressure matches. You can’t measure it but you can see and feel it. Is that missing with Hinshelwood? We were in almost the same scenario under Luke Williams in the play-offs, but you can argue he instilled that mental resilience, we fought back every time and got promoted.

I'd 100% have him back but I agree with @Chris I don't think Macca returning is that likely. Like anyone he will try and get the best deal available and it's not going to be coming from us. Given he's signed a long-term contract, I think in terms of finances he'd be quite happy to stay at Millwall, but go out on loan. I think the best we could hope for is a loan deal where we only pay a portion of his wages, but I'm sure they'd be League 1 clubs in the queue a head of us.

I’d be gutted if McGoldrick left, even more so if it was join MK. He's played under Paul Warne and he wanted him to stay at Derby before he signed for us, so I could totally see it happening... A case of wait and see now I guess. If MK have offered him a deal there’s no way we’ll be able to match the wages offered. It's mad now, whatever league we are in there’s always a club that can pay ridiculous amounts of money to players. As good as he is realistically he won’t play every game next season and that’s probably reflected in the deal we will have offered him. He will be tough to replace though, just in terms of skill I don’t think many can get close to him at this level.

Really good as usual, some very interesting players and some I've never really heard of too! I've already seen on social media there are rumours lots of league clubs are interested in Harrison Burke the young defender from Chester and we might be one of them! I'd definitely take Eyoma, seem to remember Lincoln fans were quite surprised when he wasn't offered a contract there. I've been impressed with Alistair Smith this season but I think the fact Wimbledon have just been promoted makes them favourites to sign him now though. I can totally see us move for Kian Spence though, I think he'd be perfect for us. Likewise Luke Bolton because he came through Man City's academy he'd have no issue with our style, I'd make him a top target if I was on our recruitment team! I think the addition of a couple of quality attacking midfielders is key for me, never heard of Brandon Kavanagh but his stats are impressive. I can see the club spending a fee here to bring in some proper quality.

No idea how Mathieu Baudry has ended up on the list and I’d be really surprised if it was him as he has no coaching experience and is now a finance manager. Are we hiring for one of those at the same time?! I don’t think the odds list has much credit to it right now, out of all the names that aren’t something stupid like 50-1 the only likely names in my opinion are Adam Hinshelwood, Luke Williams and Jon Brady. The first two are very similar in terms of style, the only difference in my eyes is Luke Williams probably a tad better and available for free! Jon Brady is a really intriguing option though, because he’s a tad different with his approach but he finished 4th and then 3rd with Northampton. I think he would be more than happy with our set-up too. He did an interview with Gab Sutton where he suggested he intends to bring in a specialist in-possession coach with an elite developmental background for his next role… I’m not sure if Jack Wilshire would drop to League 2, I wouldn’t be against the idea especially if he had a couple of more experienced coaches alongside him.

I think like with most things there needs to be a balance. The current squad is more physical than the one that got promoted and I’m sure over the summer we’ll add a couple of players who are strong and quick but I think our edge will always come from us simply being more skilful than the opposition. It kind of ties in but I do think we are too honest and nice at times too, I certainly don’t want us to become a team that moans and fouls all the time, but it seems like lots of teams in this division try to pressure the ref into favouring them. And that’s kind of what I’ve found more frustrating, the teams that constantly time-waste and use all the tricks and dark arts. It’s like they know they can’t compete with us in terms of actually playing football so do everything to avoid it! It would be nice if the refs react quicker and actually do more to combat it. I did read they are bringing in a rule in the Premiership that only the captain can approach the ref next season, I hope this happening in the EFL too.

Depends who he’s up against! If in a couple of weeks he’s announced as the new head coach I won’t be upset lets put it that way. He was 6 points off the play-offs in the Championship before he totally fumbled the West Brom managerial situation…

I don’t think it’ll be Luke Williams but I wouldn’t be against him returning as I do think he just fits us. The players were always behind him and he definitely had a charisma that Stuart seemed to lack. Who knows what might have happened had Swansea never approached us… I’d be happy with Des Buckingham but like others have said I’m not convinced he would drop into League 2. I'd also be interested by Stephen Bradley at Shamrock Rovers, again not sure if he would drop to League 2 as he's seemingly quite happy over in Ireland.

I see no reason to change the style of play, I fully believe you can get promoted playing whatever style you want as long as you recruit both players and coaches that can do it! We have assembled a squad that has a lot technically very good footballers whose skills are better suited to spending more time on the ball than off it. I don’t think the style was the sole reason we didn’t get promoted, we were just far to lack-lustre and safe at times this season. I’ve seen lots of teams in League 2 play direct football and it be pretty useless, of course it can be effective if done right, but lots of teams in the division play this way and are worse off because of it. I totally agree there has to be touch of pragmatism, if the pitch is truly awful then I would expect any half decent coach to tell the team to take less risks playing it out from the back. And you can still play possession based football and play direct balls, they just need to partnered with a good attacking run. I fully believe we can get promoted playing this style of football, this season we’ve been pretty average and still finished 6th!

No idea right now, I'll have to have a think but I'm sure the emphasis will be on bringing a coach who is more attack minded. We certainly lost the excitement factor at Meadow Lane this season and a big part of keeping the attendance up is entertainment. Brian Priske, who coached Feyenoord in the Champions League this year, is somehow in the odds... Surely that will not happen though and someone has just made a connection between both him and the brothers being Danish!

You can’t say these owners aren’t ambitious, it’s a big call and I can’t say I’m that surprised but I certainly sympathise with Stuart because in January he lost his two assistants and best player and neither got replaced adequately. I think if you look at all the stats from this season they do play to Stuart’s favours, particularly with ones like XG and big chances created and this is kind of how I thought the brothers would look at the season. Equally, they will have been at every home match since the start of the year and like mine, their eyes will have been telling them a conflicting story.

9 times of of 10 96 points in any other league gets you promoted, so I totally feel for all the York fans right now. I think the 2 relegation spots in League 2 give teams a false sense of security at times, but the reality is if you get relegated into the NL it is so much harder to come straight back up - as we know all to well! 3 up and 3 down will actually make it easier to get back into the EFL if you do get relegated. I think had we not gone up in our season where we got 107 points, it would've sparked some sort of action. But because we won the play-offs, everyone got to say the right outcome happened, so in the end it didn't really matter. I can see this topic and debate dragging for a long while yet.

I didn’t actually listen to the post-match interview until now (because I just wanted to forget about the match over the weekend) but it does give me a strong impression that Stuart will be here next season. He does sound very confident he’ll be here next season, I’m pretty sure the if he was unsure he would’ve probably said so because he is usually pretty honest. He doesn’t mention anything like a meeting with the owners or new director of football to discuss his future... We desperately need new coaches so I’m glad at the very least that will be addressed. I still find the bit about not adding coaches “because it had the potential to upset the group” a tad strange though. The coaches we would’ve bought in would’ve fit the club’s style, they wouldn’t have bought in coaches with totally opposing ideas!

He had one season where he played quite a bit in the Championship but he’s struggled since then. He needs to playing regularly, dropping down to the NL would give him more of a chance of reviving his career. We are in a bit of a tough scenario when it comes to signing a new keeper, because they are basically going to be second choice. I think the recruitment team would have excelled themselves if they can find someone better on half Bass’ wages. Yes a new keeper will have hopes that they could become our new number 1 but the chances are he’ll be sat on the bench for most the season; a tough sell!

Nothing too surprising but i’s sad to know we’ve seen the last of Sam Austin in Notts shirt. I understand we already have a number of players similar to him so it would’ve restricted us from strengthening. Still, he was a player you could always rely on in terms of effort and application. Pretty sure he’ll end up at another League 2 club. And I’ll be interested to see where Whitaker's career goes from here, again had we not had so many players already contracted maybe we might have kept him. It's super encouraging to see 9 academy players offered deals. Got to be a good sign as these will have been earnt by merit. It does feel like we are much closer to finally seeing a player from the academy becoming a real part of the first-team squad.