menzinho

The club did the right thing with Ceds, but I can’t help but feel he put a lot of pressure on himself taking the number 9 shirt and wanting to be the main man so soon after a massive injury. Obviously a big reason he moved to Carlisle would have also been to play under Mike Williamson again but that is no longer the case now. He could well be playing in the National League again next season, that might feel like another step back in his career, but it might enable him to get scoring again. The injury was something that was totally out of his control, I really hope he can get back to his best with Carlisle soon.

Norwich City 0-2 West Bromwich Albion Stoke City 2-1 QPR Blackpool 2-2 Bolton Wanderers Bristol Rovers 2-1 Mansfield Town Barrow 1-0 Chesterfield Walsall 1-1 AFC Wimbledon Dagenham & Redbridge 1-1 Maidenhead United Tamworth 3-1 Eastleigh 🤡

They are surprisingly a lot better at home than away. They’ve beaten Donny, Salford, Barrow & Crewe at home (better than us!) I can’t see a scenario where we don’t score against this lot though, they’ve conceded the most goals in the league so far, surely they can’t get two clean-sheets against us! I’m not sure I like the 3-5-2/3-4-2-1 under Stuart at the moment, the wingbacks are expected to do too much and the two attacking mids don’t do enough. But I’m not sure given the injuries how flexible we can be. We did play a 4-2-3-1 formation against Newport last season away and shoved Macca out on the left but it worked… Jarvis would excel in a freer attacking role on the left, Didzy just behind Jatta works, that just leaves the right hand-side of the attacking 3. Could Traore or Morias play wide-right?

Insane that Grimsby who have lost 15 games this season could still go up automictically! Wouldn't mind if this was the start of Colchester falling back down the table, we’ve got to go there soon so a run of bad results would be ideal. Great result for Tranmere, 46 points probably keeps you up this season just two more wins for them and I think they’ll be fine.

That's fair enough @allardyces tash I like how everyone sees the the match so differently, I seem to be in the minority though so maybe I'm wrong! But for me I thought Bedeau, from a defensive point was pretty good. Some of the fouls awarded against him were harsh, but he was part of a defence that limited Crewe to just the 4 shots yesterday.

It's odd that we are only 2 points off an automatic spot but if feels like it's much bigger margin! I'm definitely looking the other way I'd put us in a mini-league with Grimsby, Colchester and Crewe for those last two spots now. We only have a 4 point gap and if our current form continues we will drop out of them come the end of the season. That said I do I think we are good enough to finish inside the play-offs, we just need to go at teams a bit more especially at home. Right now though I think it'll be really close, I want to say yes but I'm just not sure.

I think when you get promoted, in an ideal world, you want to do it a bit like how we did it in the National League – not in the sense of it being as nerve-wracking but where the team is comfortably better than the level it’s at. If I’m being totally honest, I think we are a good League 2 side, but I wouldn’t say we are comfortably better than most of the opposition as our results against the top 10 (top 7 in particular) show. Promotion if you are not really ready for it can actually be a bad thing. Look at Carlisle when they got promoted via the play-offs they only won 20 matches in total in League 2. Unsurprisingly in League 1 they had a terrible season and now look at them. I agree that League 1 is a really strong league right now, assuming those in the relegation spots get relegated that leaves you with Northampton, Bristol, Exeter and maybe Mansfield as the weaker teams the rest are all decent/very good (a lot better than us!). I think if we were to get promoted, I agree we’d need to make some considerable changes to the squad, assuming we don’t want to just come straight back down and that puts a lot of pressure to get the summer recruitment spot on. If you already have a very strong squad that's ready to step up, there’s a lot less to do.

In response to Stuarts statement above, there were no chances to take that’s why! Didzy fizzed a half chance wide and Abbott had half decent chance right at the end but that was it, for 80 minutes prior we didn’t create much of note. But I agree we should’ve had at least 1 penalty. Whitaker is caught but the way he goes down turning to ref to appeal just makes it look weirdly suspect. The one on Jarvis, Cooney leads with his arm so it’s daft I don’t think you could complain if it had been given. First half was just a boring non-event really. We were better in the second half though, but again it took us far to long to actually start putting Crewe under a bit of pressure. We were solid and defended well, but attack wise for too long we looked a bit lost and clueless. Jarvis, who looked threatening taking players on spent too much of the match in his own half. And on the other side in Gordon we have a player who is really quick but not that skilful, yet we kept playing the ball to his feet expecting him to beat his man. He’s crying out for a 1-2 to get in behind. And particularly first half, I had no idea what both Whitaker and Grant were supposed to be doing. I feel like our way of playing, especially going forward relies too much on individual players and their quality to just be better than the opposition. I know it’s harder with Jodi and Jatta missing but we need to be more adaptable and play to strengths of the players on the pitch more.

I still like to get out and play football, I mainly do it over the winter in the evenings. It's a casual thing really, a group of us hire out a pitch for an hour and we just split into two teams. I used to play Sunday League until recently but I got a bit fed up of getting kicked and trodden on by guys who took it way too seriously... Now the summer is approaching I'll try and get out on my bike when I can. But like a lot of the UK the state of the roads where I live are poor so I need to try and find a route that isn't too busy but also has the luxury of allowing me to actually lift my head and take in some of the scenery instead of being on a constant pot-hole watch!

I agree that the players mentioned had decent games, but I think we were much better defensively than we were in an attack yesterday. Slocombe wasn’t really tested but the back three were solid to be honest, Platt probably edges it for me cos he constantly won a lot of headers.

It hasn't been a good month so far that's for sure. The start of the month was the time when you want to go on a run and have a 6/7/8 unbeaten streak that would lift you comfortably into the automatic spots and take the pressure off in those last few matches. I do think we need to now beat both Crewe and Newport to keep our automatic hopes alive, other teams around us surely aren't going to keep dropping points too!

It’s tough because Edwards & Grant are contracted until next season and they play the same position. The problem for me is, I think he’s potentially a lot better than both, so can we have 3 players that aren't guaranteed starters vying for 1 position? Assuming Didzy stays and we sign another proven No.10 we would be overloaded as other players like Austin, Traore and Jarvis can always fill in behind a striker too. That said I’d like him to stay, I think a pre-season with us will help him massively and considering he’s not even played 10 matches of proper football yet he’s done well. He looks very good on the ball and he’s got a great shot on him. But you can tell he’s played a lot of academy football, probably too much! At times it’s like he thinks he’ll get more time on the ball (which you do in non-competitive matches) and he’s easily knocked off the ball. I think this will improve with the more matches he plays. For me, he'll only get better.

I was almost a touch undecided, only because I was starting to be worried that we were becoming over-reliant on him. And I think that can be a bad thing, we can’t expect a player coming to the end of his career to be our saviour all the time and bail us out when we are struggling. But at the same time of course it would be daft to not have him in the squad. I’d 100% have him for another season, but I think we need to prioritise getting in at least 1 really good No.10 over the summer as well. He looked really fresh coming on against Grimsby after his break. Ok it wasn't through choice, but having a period of time not playing actually helped him. We know when it comes to the weekend, midweek runs of fixtures he needs a break to be at his best so we also need to sign someone who will eventually take his spot.

Just to follow on from a few good points, I do think we need to take full advantage of the 5 subs more often at times, especially if we want to keep our pressing and intensity levels high. The fact you can make more subs now actually benefits teams that want to press because it gives you a chance to bring more fresh legs on. Asking your midfielders and wide players to press effectively for 90 minutes is not possible, they are going to fade as the game wears on. And I think for Jatta it hasn’t helped that we’ve basically played him constantly for 90 minutes since about November. And unfortunately, Traore, who could replace him is injured. Yes he probably should've scored a few more goals but he's still scored the bulk of our goals this season (along with McGoldrick) I don’t know whether it’s down to style of play or individuals but the spread of goals across the team has been poor this season.

Coventry City 1-2 Sunderland Plymouth Argyle 1-1 Derby County Blackpool 2-1 Leyton Orient Wycombe Wanderers 2-0 Wrexham 🤡 Accrington Stanley 1-1 Gillingham Newport County 0-0 Harrogate Town Sutton United 1-2 Halifax Town Wealdstone 1-3 Eastleigh

McGoldrick was a revelation when he came on but before that I was impressed with our defending. First half we defended the box really well and second half Grimsby went very route one but we stood strong. Slocombe and the back 3 were really solid for me, I’d say Platt just edges it because he pretty much won every header.

Tell us how you really feel Andy! Wow, they only lost 2-0 but you'd have thought it was 8-0! That's 15 matches without a win for Mansfield… They’ve had a couple of draws but most of the results have been losses. They’ve got a tough run in too but I think they’ll be just about safe come the end of the season due to the bottom four having too much to do. To be fair to them, League 1 is really strong at the moment. Bottom 4 aside their aren't really any 'dud' teams...

Fair play to the team tonight, dug in and secured a really good result. Hopefully that will calm everyone down a bit and give the players a much needed confidence boost. It was all about playing sensibly and pragmatically tonight given the awful pitch condition and we did it. I mean, I’ve gone for some weekend walks over farmers fields recently and they’ve been in better condition than Grimsby’s pitch, it really did affect the quality of the match. What a difference McGoldrick makes though, just individual quality that unfortunately the rest of our attacking midfielders can’t get close to. Great to have him back. Just hope Bass is ok, that said Slocombe did well considering he hasn’t played for months either!

Looks like no-one wants to get promoted this season!

Everyone was below par today. It’s not really much of an achievement for this match but I feel I’ve no other option than to give it to Rod McDonald who at least defended well second half.

The loss of the coaching staff isn’t great, argue amongst yourselves whether or not you rate them but now Stuart can only really lean on Joao Alves for advice and he's at the very early stages of his coaching career. I’m surprised we haven’t added another first team coach, it’s been over a month since both Saunders departed. Richard going is a blow but I can’t see how it directly affects the current on-field issues. Perhaps there’s been a slight downturn in morale, but I’ve no idea how close he was with the current players. Crowley going for me has been a blow, ok by all accounts some players weren’t overly impressed with him and if he stayed he’d have left for free in the summer. That said replacing a player of his quality in January is far from ideal, we’d have had to have paid over the odds for someone and we know the club doesn’t operate like that. We’ve taken a bit of a gamble with Whitaker who shows promise but I agree that right now he’s nowhere near the same level. I'm not always sure you need a captain to scream and shout to be honest, no-one has really had an issue with Palmer in that role. We do have a younger squad now though, take today for example Matt Palmer was oldest player in that starting line-up, maybe a tad more experience is needed. Also I feel we rely too much on individual performances, we suddenly seemed to get back on track when Crowley returned from injury. And now look at us with McGoldrick (and Jones) out, it’s like we are just waiting for them to produce moments of magic. Look at the assists for this season, right now both Palmer and Abbott are joint 1st on 4 (only because Crowley has now left) the rest of our attacking midfielders and wing-backs have got either 2 or 1 - that is shocking, especially when we are 35 games into the season. Same goes for goals, we rely too much on Jatta and McGoldrick, Jodi is still our 3rd top scorer and he hasn’t been fit for months!

Funny how that happened today @Robbie, I thought Hinchy was a tad unlucky to be taken off at half-time as well. I get things needed to change but sadly no-one really performed very well against Wimbledon.

Wimbledon are a good side; they looked physically a lot stronger than us and had players like Neufville who were really quick out wide. We lost to a good team, but it’s a result that feels worse because of the loss to Barrow in the week. I’m not so sure I agree about Bass being solely responsible for the goals, the corner was quite deep but Bedeau actually slipped and that meant Lewis was unchallenged. For the second goal, he absolutely smashed it to be fair. Wimbledon didn’t carve us open it was two moments of poor defending, Bass just had to make a few routine saves, the worry for me was in 90 minutes of football we had no real idea about how to attack them. If our patterns don’t work (which they didn’t) we just look totally clueless. I could’ve played in goal for Wimbledon today and the result would’ve been the same. Individual performances were poor as well, especially in an attacking sense. Grant and Tsaroulla who did well coming on at Barrow got rewarded with a start but then produced nothing. Whitaker was far too lightweight and Jatta whenever he did get the ball his touch was usually well off. It’s another loss to a promotion rival, we just can’t seem to edge any of them out away from home. That tells me this team just isn’t ready for League 1.

Favourite Player Right Now: George, run the show, Abbott. Most Consistent Performer So Far: Bedeau, he’s had a few stand-out games but usually he’s just very solid. Rising Star in the Squad [Not Including Loanees]: I’ll go for Macari, I think we underappreciated him at the start of the season because we were all so impressed with our new defensive recruits. Most Improved Player Recently: Hinchy maybe, not seen a lot of him but when he stepped in for Palmer after his facial fracture he was pretty good. Best Player in Each Position: Bass, Platt, Jones, Abbott, McGoldrick (as a 10), Jatta. Who is your all-time favourite Notts County player and why? Mike Edwards cos he’s the player I remember most fondly as a kid. I am a bit gutted I didn’t get to experience many exciting, get you off you seat type players when I was young and first started following Notts. If you could have dinner with any current Notts County player, who would it be and why? David McGoldrick he’s had a very successful career and I’d enjoy hearing about it (and he’s got a bit of money so we’d go somewhere fancy). What's your favourite Notts County chant or song? The Referee’s a… Oh favourite Notts song, don't really have one but I like is the Jodi Jones chant! If you could relive any moment in Notts County history, what would it be and why? The penalty shoot-out at Wembley v Chesterfield, it would be a lot less stressful knowing we won it! What's the furthest you've travelled to watch a Notts County game? Yeovil and I’ve not been back!

I was chatting about this the other day, and it was highlighted how Palmer as good as he is, never scores and as good as his passing is he doesn't get that many assists either. But like you say that never made him a bad player, because his role has always been about helping us play out from the back and I don't think there's anyone better than him at this level. I think now because of the loss of Crowley (and with Didzy injured) the No.10 roles have suddenly become an issue. Whitaker as good as he is technically is still learning and makes mistakes. Grant struggles to get involved at times and Edwards has struggled after returning from a long lay-off. So now we are having to rely on those further back and right now it's only really Abbott breaking forward from midfield to create something and I wonder if we could see more of this from Palmer too at times. When he has space in front of him can drive the play forward, dribble with the ball and drag an opposition player out of position, or can he play a riskier ball in behind earlier... He's definitely capable of doing it.