menzinho

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.

I wasn't expecting us to finish in the automatics spots this season, that said having watched us play (prior to these recent poor home performances) I've thought we've usually looked better than most teams in the division, even when we've played the better teams yes we've lost/drawn but we've never been dominated in the way we can dominate teams. I think this team is capable, but right now it's just not playing like a team that is going to finish in the top 3. And it's frustrating watching a team play like a shell of themselves when you know they are capable of so much more. In terms of these upcoming fixtures, I'm actually more confident about the away games it's the two home games that worry me more. If we continue to play as we have been at home this last month, I can't see how we get anything against a decent Chesterfield team and well organised/motivated Crewe. Just to add to Chris' point about the wingbacks, cos I noticed Jarvis got a lot of criticism too. We don't always give our wingbacks that much support in how we play at the moment. Prior to Stuart, whoever was playing in the two No.10 roles used to drift out wide to support the wingbacks with the intention of trying to play a short ball to get them in behind. Right now that doesn't happen as much, it's like the wing-backs are expected to take their man on and beat them and if they can't the only other option is to pass it backwards...

For a young player who is experiencing his first matches in the EFL he’s doing ok. Generally, he defends pretty well but he does have a tendency to switch off at times and he can get outpaced quite easily. I think he’s more exposed playing in a back three as a RCB for us because it means he’s usually defending against wide players/wingers. Maybe he would be more suited to playing as one of the CBs in a back four. I think after us I’d expect him to go out on loan again, probably to another League 2 club to be honest. I can't see him getting into your squad in the Championship (or Prem!) next season.

I agree that the bringing on Grant and Tsaroulla changed the game for the better. I think both have underpeformed this season. Given that Grant plays in the No.10 role there really is a lot of onous on him to create and score more goals and this season that has be badly lacking. And for me Tsaroulla is a strange one, I’ve never known someone look so comfortable and threatening until they get into the final third that is, usually his shooting is really poor. It was better from his last night though! Anyway, I went for Abbott just because I see no reason why his goal was disallowed and you can never fault his lack of effort.

On the disallowed goal, having just seen the replay from @Piethagoram's clip it hits the Barrow player and no-one is in the keepers eyeline. The most telling thing is the reaction from the Barrow player who has the best view (standing on space on the right-hand side) he instantly puts his head in hands, he knew… I’d have liked to have seen a touch map for Traore, I’d be surprised if he got into double figures. Not his fault though but in Jatta and Traore we had a physical striker and a quick striker yet we didn’t use either of their strengths enough. I know they'll need time to get used to each others game, but I really don't know why we took so long to get the ball to them.

Bradford are looking like they will win the league at the moment, they have seemingly got a run going just at the right time. We are fast approaching the end now, only 11 games left for the majority, I think for Walsall and Bradford they only need to win 6 more with a few draws and they'll go up.

The ref had the worst performance of the night, closely followed by us and then Barrow. It was just a bad game of football that I really want to forget quickly. No idea what the goal was ruled out for in the end, some Barrow players were appealing for offside others looked they were saying it hit someone’s arm… It was just desperation. And how Barrow didn’t get a single yellow card for their time wasting in the second half was just mind-boggling. But in a game where the opposition lacked any real quality, we just didn’t do anything until we went 2-0 down and in the end we just ran out of time. For 60 minutes prior it was far too slow and the repetition of passing the ball to feet over and over to just put a hopeful cross in was painful. To lose that game is so discouraging, especially when our recent home performances have been so lacklustre in recent weeks too. We are lucky in a sense that from all the other matches only Bradford won, everyone else in the top 8 dropped points… That said, at the moment this doesn't feel like a team that is going to finish in the top 3.

I'd be surprised if Cameron was allowed to play to be honest, I've no idea what the rules are but I can't see why we'd want to potentially cause ourselves a bit of a nightmare. Like @Fan of Big Tone says imagine if he plays, does well and even scores it'll have seriously backfired for us and he's technically our player so he should only be benefiting us really. I do think given the little run of games we've got coming up where we'll play 4 teams in the top 10 (Wimbledon, Grimsby, Chesterfield, Crewe) a win here is much needed as I'm fully prepared for us to drop points after it. I agree with @Robbie too I think it's time to give Traore a start here, I think him and Whitaker in behind Jatta will cause all sorts of problems for Barrow. Maybe a touch to early for Jodi and Macari to start though, but I'll be pleased if either of them do.

I think if a keeper drops the ball and picks it back up it’s an indirect free-kick isn’t it? They can bounce it but I think that’s it. Could be wrong though. I quite like the idea and let’s be honest it probably benefits us, it’s one way of combating all the teams who do just constantly time waste and try to play as little football as possible. I’d go one step further though, if they do it twice in a match the punishment should be a penalty, three times and a goal is awarded! Maybe I’m getting a bit carried away here...

I agree with @liampie in that I think Scott Lindsey is a decent coach for a League 2 team and that’s about it. I think MK got a bit blinded by how well Crawley played against them against in the play-offs. When you look at the big picture under Lindsey, they did well but they weren’t amazing, they lost 18 matches that season and only made it into the play-offs by a point. Again I’m amazed at how many League 2 clubs are so badly run, like devoid of basic thought and zero foresight. Why do you spend the whole window signing a load of his ex-Crawley players specifically for him and his way of playing only to then dump him? They aren’t short of money at MK now but the words chucking and drain come to mind.

Hull 2-1 Plymouth Preston 2-0 Swansea Charlton 1-2 Barnsley Mansfield 1-1 Wigan Colchester 1-0 Chesterfield Newport 0-0 Gillingham Aldershot 2-2 Dagenham Solihull 1-3 Sutton

It does feel like he is our emergency/last choice centre back. Macari is back now and letting him go now would suggest to me McDonald's injury isn't that serious either. I hope he does well at Solihull too just for his sake, he only signed for a year (I think) so I doubt we'll see much of him again.

In January after they beat us it looked like Walsall would be coasting to the title, but they've had a real wobble, they should still finish top 3 but it'll be a lot closer come the end of the season now. Salford are rubbish again by the looks of it and now Grimsby look like they are the next contenders to challenge for the play-offs. They are on a good run at the moment but over the season they've been far too inconsistent and a minus goal difference is never a sign of a good team. I think the current top 7 are likely to finish top 7, what order is anyone's guess though!

George Abbott for me too. He created his first goal by pressing their defender and then produced a lovely touch and cross for Jatta's goal. He was the reason we scored 2.

Whilst the second half kind of defined the match, that first 45 minutes was a real wasted opportunity for me. For all our control and possession, we only had the 1 goal to show for it. We rarely tested their keeper, I think he made one save from Jatta but that was it. We didn’t take advantage of Fleetwood being so passive, we lack a touch of aggression in the sense off we don’t pin teams and put them under pressure for long periods. We are too happy to just take it easy, pass it back and wait. It’s not like it’s the first time we’ve seen it happen this season either, lots of teams have started games standing off us, got outplayed and then changed it up second half to come out more and cause us problems. No idea what Bass is thinking for their 1st goal, even after it hits Platt the attacker Graydon is still being forced wide, so Bass turns what was probably a 20% chance of a goal into an almost certain one by conceding that pen. And then that just gave them a bit of a boost and unlike us they made their momentum count. Fair play we got something out of it in the end and a draw isn't a bad result but it did feel like a missed opportunity. Chances are Fleetwood will probably take a few points of our other promotion rivals too so that is something. Oh, and today confirmed it for me that goal music should be banned, no idea what that was that they played but it was some awful fisherman ditty that sounded like something from SpongeBob SquarePants. Awful stuff.

Luton Town 1-2 Portsmouth Stoke City 1- 1 Watford Crawley Town 2-1 Cambridge United Peterborough United 1-0 Shrewsbury Town Cheltenham Town 2-0 Grimsby Town Harrogate Town 1-0 Accrington Stanley Oldham Athletic 1-3 Barnet Yeovil Town 2-2 Southend United

It’s interesting how Chris and Alex analyse football, the league table for them is just a small part of it, where as to us fans it’s everything. They look and dig a lot deeper and I’m always intrigued by their own table which they say gives another perspective on how well a team is performing and will likely perform in the future. Ultimately, I guess, this is how Stuart Maynard will be judged. It’ll never happen but I’d like to see that table, my guess is it’ll be similar to an XG table but use a lot of additional data too. For those interested in terms of XG, in that table (the one I use from footballxg.com) we are currently 3rd on 56 Points. We are underperforming our XG by 7, so we should’ve probably scored more goals. But also, we are over-performing when it comes to XGA (expected goals against) which is also 7, that just confirms Bass is really good basically! Anyway, back on topic! Unless we have a bad run and drop out of the play-offs by a considerable margin, I don’t think Stuart Maynard will be replaced because, albeit through some frustrating performances at the minute, we are better off than last season. And I do think performances can only get better again, hopefully Tranmere was a bit of a wake-up call. I do think we need at least one more first team coach though, and maybe that’s where the Bros and Stuart will work together to strengthen us (a tough act to follow on from Matt Saunders who has completed football tactics).