menzinho

Yes, get well soon @Piethagoram, you didn't miss much against Wimbledon so here's to hoping for a win or a clean sheet (the latter will be more impressive) against Crawley to help boost your spirits!

It’s like we can only do one or the other at the moment, either set-up to try and stop the opposition (which we did overall, set-pieces were our downfall but in open play Wimbledon didn’t create anything) but at the expense of our own attacking game. Or we go out to score goals and concede at the same rate… I will say we created the only really good chance in the game and Macca should’ve scored it. Feels like Stuart Maynard hasn’t had anything really go his way since his appointment. But I can't get over how Wimbledon just sat back and played like a team that were more than happy to leave with a 0-0. They were there to attack but we didn’t really have them that worried, everything was to feet and a touch too slow. We needed to really quicken the pace in the last third try some more balls in behind, 1 touch passes to get us through their defence or even just getting more people in the box at times. Langstaff looked a bit of a lone figure amongst their CB’s. A draw would’ve probably been a fair result but sadly that feels like the story of Stuart Maynard’s time so far. We’ve not really been out performed by any team, in some of the tougher games we’ve done ok and been unfortunate to lose by a goal but equally we’ve lost to some pretty poor teams who didn’t put us under much pressure and didn’t create many good chances either. I get we’re probably not good enough to go up but we’re not the 15th best (or worst for the pessimists) team in the league and it’s disappointing to see us there right now. Morecambe, Crawley, Bradford and Newport are all now above us in the table and we’ve beaten all of them (some at a canter, some even twice!) Right now I’m just clinging to the fact I’ll get to see Robertson paired with Palmer next season but that amazing thought is going to wear off soon! We’ve now not won at home in 5 games (1 draw 4 losses) and today was our 4th loss in a row. I don’t want to compare it to previous regimes but I’d be really surprised had that happened under LW…

I had doubts about this going head today given the current state of Bradford's pitch, so it's a real shame to all those who travelled for nothing. Do they play rugby league there or do they train on it in the week or something? I can't understand how a pitch that is used weekly can get into such a state.

The momentum and confidence from last season seems to have worn off now, that was probably always going to fade at some point though wasn’t it? I think it’s slightly over-exaggerated about how easy the step-up is and maybe we were a tad blindsided by our record-breaking season achievements. The bottom half of the NL would really struggle in this league and I’m not sure some of the better teams would do that well either. Mansfield might finally get promoted this season and they’ve spent 7 seasons trying, by no means will I consider this season a massive failure if we don’t finish in the play-offs, it's about progressing, by basically not getting relegated we’ve done that. Then it becomes about making sure that progression continues each season and we’ll get promoted when we're ready. Now to actually answer the question, no! But like you say never say never in football…

I think not adding to our defence over the summer was a mistake, it's easy to say in hindsight now but at the same time I totally understand why you'd give the players who got you promoted the chance to prove themselves. The recruitment team (overall) have done a pretty good job. The January window is far from ideal to be doing a lot of business. The simplest reason we didn’t sign any defenders in their peak could just be because we didn’t have/find any good available options. (Insert joke about a statue being better than our defenders here) But imagine we signed two CB’s permanently because “we thought we had too” but there were doubts about if they were good enough and that turned out to be true, that’s another 2 players on the books for x years. I’m sure it’ll be addressed in the summer when we can get the right players in. I don’t think we need to deviate too far from what’s made us successful since the Reedtz brothers came in and I don’t think we will. It’s just cutting out stupid mistakes and playing safer at times, just knocking it out for a throw or clearing a ball into the stands every now and again won’t change our style. In terms of defending, yes, we need induvial quality but I also think we need proper wing-backs if we’re going to stick with the 3-4-2-1. (Basically we need to play some more defenders and not just 3!) We were able to play JJ and Nemane in the league below because our quality was a level above and the oppositions quality was not great. Neither really play like wingbacks let’s be honest they are wingers who just drop back occasionally to make up the numbers when we aren’t on the ball. When was the last time an actual wing-back had 20 assists? It just doesn’t happen.

I’m pretty optimistic in general but I’m struggling to find the positives after viewing that. It had all the hallmarks of what seems to been ingrained into us this season; give away an early goal, a defender with an assist for the opposition’s striker and conceding a penalty (must be like the 20th we’ve given away this season). It’s so frustrating given we have to work really hard to score goals with all our passing and movement, the opposition just needs to cross it into our box and they’ve got 50/50 chance of scoring. Conceding goals has been a problem all season, even before Stuart was appointed, it’s just becoming too deflating now. It’s almost like it’s added motivation/confirmation for opposition too, they’ll know before a ball is kicked that they can score against us! I really hope this season doesn’t nose-dive, play-offs looks a world away at the moment but we can’t fall into a slump, we desperately need to show a bit more nous and desire.

Fine margins there. If we score one of our early chances that could’ve been a different game. On the whole we did well 1st half, we struggled a bit in the second half early on, Wrexham just kept us penned in and we were all over the place defensively at times. They were able to get the ball into the channels and go down the wings too easily which is exactly what they wanted. But then we took control back and we had a lot of the ball in the last 20 but struggled to really create much (our legit goal aside). Which brings me onto the ref, I don’t like to moan too much as it’s not an easy job but he got two big decisions wrong. Lee should’ve been sent off for a second yellow, in the second half he was dispossessed, we broke and then when he was running back to try and stop our counter he just grabbed Robertson round the neck and dragged him to the floor. And I think our goal should’ve stood, looks like the top of the arm at worst and that’s on the shirt line so it’s not handball. Like Stuart Maynard says the reactions tell the story for you, no Wrexham player appealed yet Didzy goes absolutely mental at the ref, why would he if he had handballed? Someone like Jatta in the 2nd half would’ve been perfect, our crossing was poor but the cross had to be perfect when all our attackers are smaller than the 3 Wrexham CBs. Wrexham defended well, we actually defended better too. I just thought going forward at times it was too slow, like we almost wanted to create the perfect chance. Like we’ve shown recently with our defending we need a bit more grit and determination about our attack. Our attack gets a lot of credit but against the better teams in this league we’ve struggled to score. And I’m really starting to like Roberston. He was excellent again, covers the ground well, really good on the ball and wins a lot of challenges too. Early days but he looks to be a really good signing.

Wrexham are blessed with the ability to play with no real patterns of play, it’s just about getting it close to the goal to someone with quality like Lee, McClean, Mullin etc. Or failing that a set-piece so one of their massive defenders can cause some chaos. They haven’t been playing well, but I think it’s their away form which is more likely to hamper them for the rest of the season. They have got that ability to just churn out results and they only need a good 10-minute spell and before you know it they’ve scored 2. I’d expect Wrexham will try and bombard our backline from the off, they’ll make us defend 50/50 balls as much as possible so we really need to be up for it defensively. We've got threats too though although I suspect Jodi will need to wear a 360° shin pad tomorrow! We’ve always had close games with Wrexham and I expect tomorrow will be no different, a draw would be a good result for us given our terrible form against the top 10 in this league.

Haha, I think I’d struggle if I had to rely on CCTV though, I’d need professional quality footage! Maybe I’ll try and track Will Randall down next, some good info from @Fozzy about him spending his time at shopping centres, I already know the best time to look for him would be at 3pm on a Saturday…

And what's even more impressive about the current total of 65 goals is that he's done it in 82 games. ???? ????

So I had another look at the stream this evening cos I wanted to see some little bits of action again and I noticed at the start of the stream ifollow had footage of all the Notts players getting off the bus and one of them was Charlie, he wasn’t hobbling nor was he on crutches! They certainly wouldn’t bother taking an injured player down to Newport would they? I'm pretty sure clubs take spare players just in case you get a freak injury during the warm-up...

I’m pretty sure that’s the first time this season since MK Dons away that we’ve started with 4 natural defenders on the pitch (we played Chicksen at LWB cos Jodi was with Malta, and the back 3 was Cameron, Brinds and Rawlo) I think it's been long over due! I was all for the changes when I saw the team sheet before the game I'm so glad they worked. Given the good form Newport were in that is probably our best away performance of the season. I'm hoping that Gillingham game was a bit of an anomaly in terms of our defending because overall since Maynard has come in we've looked a lot better. The only real negative from tonight was that we didn't get the clean sheet, but you can't have everything I guess. We were comfortably the better team over the 90 minutes, and it's great to be able to celebrate a win again! Not sure I want to really congratulate Mansfield but they've done us a bit of a favour seriously damaging Harrogate's GD, and Bradford putting 4 past MK is a bonus too. And @Fozzy I think Macari played across the whole back line in his time at Stoke but when he was on loan with Dundalk he did play primarily as a RB.

I think if he was injured the club would probably keep it quiet. Given his previous injury history the reaction it would receive wouldn't do anyone any favours. That said I've not heard/seen anything, he has only played like one game this season so I'd be more inclined to think he's just not "match-fit". If he's not on the bench in the next couple of games I'd be worried.

I’m hoping we’ll get the official, official statement that transfer has gone through this week and get to see Jatta at the club. According to a report from Denmark the deal is worth £125,000! I know we received quite a bit of money when Luke Williams left but I feel given the price tag there’s actually a bit of pressure on him. He hasn’t actually really played for Viborg this season, he’s only ever featured as a sub. Surely we’ve not paid all the money for him to do the same here, I’d expect him to feature a lot more. So I’m kind of excited and scared about this signing!

Newport probably feel it’s a good time to play us and will be confident of getting a good result given they are on a bit of a winning run (in the league) at the moment. But it’s usually the games you bank on a win (like Walsall who were on a winless run of about 7/8 before beating us and Gillingham who had only scored 11 away goals) that never come true. I’m hoping this is a similar scenario, there could well be a touch of complacency from Newport and we’ve got something to prove after the poor Friday night performance. I’d be looking to make a few changes though, just to freshen the side up really. Not the easiest thing to do, as I’ve no idea who’s actually fit. Ashby-Hammond in goal, why not see what he can do. Macari for Warner, O’Brien for Bostock, Adebayo (he’s dropped the Rowling now hasn’t he?) for Nemane and Didzy for either Austin or Morias. I’d prioritise Bostock and Didzy as I think both could really do with the rest. Hopefully Colkett and Chicksen are fit enough to make the bench along with Randall, if he’s actually a real person and not just a figment of my imagination… I can see this game going two ways, after the dip in form we pull out a great performance and get a good solid win or we lose 2/3-0.

I didn’t realise so far how badly we’ve fared against the current top 10 this season. We’ve played 12 games against the current top 10 and we’ve won 1, Gillingham away. We’ve drawn with MK once and Barrow twice. The rest we’ve lost. So that’s a current record of PL 12 W 1 D 3 L 8. Do you think it will improve in the coming weeks? We’ve only got Wrexham to play away from the current 10 and the other 5 remaining games are all at Meadow Lane. Or are you bit worried that the losses will slowly pile up, are the good teams in league 2 this season just too good for us?

Very frustrating and disappointing, you don’t mind losing to a good team but Gillingham didn’t really put us any much pressure for the majority of the game. We didn’t play particularly well either but to give them 2 goals from their only 2 attempts in the first half is so bad. @Chris pretty much covers the whole game and my thoughts too so thanks for saving me the time to type them all out! Just in terms of the wider picture I think given the record-breaking season we previously had it’s easy to get carried away and think we can replicate that in the league above the truth is no-one has ever had back-to-back promotions in years, maybe even never (I’ve not checked that far back). But we know the main problems are goals against, particularly conceding on the counter and balls into our box and there’s a real lack of depth to the squad too. Injuries haven’t helped either and Matty Palmer’s injury has pretty much confirmed to me he’s probably the most important player in our squad. Lots of teams have been trying to get promoted from this league for years, Mansfield have spent a good 7 seasons at it (and spent a lot of money) they might finally get promoted this season… There’s absolutely no reason for us to panic though and the Bros certainly won’t be. I think it would’ve been very harsh to gut the majority of the team last season without at least giving them a chance to prove themselves. This season will be a valuable learning curve for us.

I really hate this fixture… In the last 12 meetings, which covers our more recent meetings (since 2014) we’ve won 3, lost 7 and drawn 2 ???????? I think Mansfield will be missing Flint through injury and both Bowery and Quinn through suspensions. So that’s a little boost for us. They have also have been struggling at Field Mill recently (maybe cos the pitch resembles one) Doncaster and Sutton got a point there and Crewe beat them. Nonetheless I’m still not confident we’ll win, maybe the team will be desperate to get them back after we kind of fell apart second half against them. I’d like to see Warner in the team and I’d even start with Adebayo-Rowling at RWB for a bit more defensive nous. It is harsh on Nemane given he’s scored 5 in 5 at the minute but we could always bring him on if we needed more attacking flair. I hope we at least put in a good performance, I’m not going so it’ll just be the radio for me, at least I can just switch it off if it all goes horribly wrong again!

I’ll admit it is hard to get excited about a player who’s only played 14 minutes of league football this season. And I find it strange a potential promotion rival would want to strengthen us, they either think he won’t or are just happy for another club to pay his wages. Interesting that he’s played under IB at Otsersunds and LW at Swindon, I wonder if they’ve given him a good reference… Like with any player I’ll judge him once he’s played for us and I hope he can prove my initial doubts wrong.

Given the rules on signing overseas players has been relaxed I wondered how long it would be until we found our next 'Rodrigues'. I think I speak for everyone on here though when I say I know absolutely nothing about him! So he’s a striker from Gambia… Weirdly not the first one, anyone remember Demba-Nyren? (It’ll be buried memory and for good reason). I guess he can’t be as bad as he was… ????

Yeah, agree with a lot that's been said. Stuart Maynard has come into to a stretch of tough games, and Barrow showed (albeit being over physical at times) why they should finish, at worst, in the play-offs come the end of the season. A point against a good team in this division is a decent result. We didn't start that well, in fact I think we were lucky we didn't go 1-0 down earlier than we did but. Wasn't so much down to the changes though, more individual errors again. I could see the changes in that Bostock and Robertson screened the defence at lot more, in tough games I think this is what we need. We controlled the game second half and Barrow just sat back almost happy with the point. I think the fact we didn't push like mad either showed we were too. I felt like we were relying heavily on Jones to create something for us, we needed to be able to be a threat on both flanks and through the middle a little bit more - not easy though, Barrow were very organised and didn't give us much space to exploit. I agree that we struggle with being able to change the games with subs too, we just seem to run out of steam a bit. We play so many attacking players (and good ones) I can see why coaches are reluctant to take them off. Only 2 of our 7 subs were attack minded yesterday and one of them in Randall has barely featured. Barrow were able to bring on Acquah, Worrall and Whitfield, I take that!

It's interesting since the injury of Palmer it seems like we've suddenly focused quite intensely on improving this area. Given FGR are in serious trouble I don't know why they'd want to let one of their supposedly better players go. Definitely won't please the fans (insert joke about them not having any here). I think a loan with an option to buy is a good idea though, especially with J'OB potentially on his last season we'd need a replacement in the summer. If it turns out McCann is great, I guess the fee will have already been agreed, so the deal would be pretty straight forward for us.

It does fall into that orange card category. I agree with Robbie though, if you want to stop someone from running then pull them back and take the yellow. He comes flying in and takes him out, the issue here is that Jodi could’ve been badly injured. I don’t think Barrow would’ve had any complaints had that been a red.

I kind of suspected the January window to be mostly loans, there's not been much movement in terms of permanent transfers so a lot of players aren't becoming available. And if you've got a half decent player clubs aren't going to want to let them go mid-way through the season! Are Man City going to take into account the minutes we gave to our last academy loanee player, Tipton, all of about 60 minutes in 6 months? ???? Stockport seems like the obvious choice to me, no idea if the player gets a say but he wouldn't have to move and they can track his progress very easily with all the home games being so local. Who knows though, maybe our style of play will sway it again!

5-0 down at half-time. I can't believe what I'm watching, I think they've had 5 shots on target 5 and scored 5 goals. Luke has committed to his high line and high press but it's just not worked at all, the defence is all over the place and no-one's actually winning/cutting the ball out when they press. They've struggled to keep the ball too and they've left Bournemouth with so much space to play in behind and in the channels, it's a dream for quality Premier League players. I don't think we've ever had a half that was that bad under Luke. Not conceded in the 2nd half yet, but all the Bournemouth players are pretty much coasting now.