menzinho

Would he want to come back? He’ll have experienced being part of our relegation squad that was a total mess and given he never played I can’t imagine he enjoyed his time here. I know we are under a completely different regime now but sometimes these memories can put you off.

Bradford managed to stop a 6-game winless run by beating Swindon (and they are poor) 1-0 last weekend so they aren’t exactly in great form either. In their 10 matches they’ve played away they’ve only won twice. They don’t score many goals and equally they don't concede that many either, Andy Cook is their biggest threat he’s scored 42% of their goals so if you stop him chances are you’ll be ok. Just looking from the outside you’d expect this to be a poor game, with few goals. Let’s hope that’s wrong! Here’s a small list of things I would love to see: 1) We don’t concede a goal from Bass playing the ball out into the middle of the pitch to a central midfielder being pressed. 2) The inverted wingbacks provide a goal/assist. 3) We play with a good tempo and intensity. 4) We create more chances/have more shots than the opposition. I’ll take 3 out of 4 of those things… Because in theory that should produce a decent result for us! It’s a weird scenario to be in, as we haven’t really played that well of late that so right now I want to see a performance that reflects what this team is trying to achieve. However, we desperately need a win too. Luke Williams last game was on New Years Day, when he left he had won 13 matches in League 2. We are nearly at that point again now and Stuart Maynard is still on 12 wins. We’ve got 4 matches before we hit NYD, he needs to get past that.

What a touch that was, sign him up! I think he’s saying it to get a reaction, he didn’t make the mistake of criticising individuals, rather the whole team which I think is fair. They are still doing pretty well, 10th in the table is solid for them considering they don’t really have a big budget or a great team anymore. I get the aim is to push for play-offs, they would do incredibly well to achieve that. They haven't got close since Steve Cooper departed and that was when they still had all the financial benefits from being recently relegated.

Gordon was absent from the squad on the weekend, Cisse got the nod as one of the back-up wingbacks. And I noticed Cedwyn Scott was missing too surely he'd have been involved as, defensive options aside, the bench for Salford was pretty weak. It would be strange decision to just leave him out if he's not injured.

I thought Haji Mnoga played well and he was on trial with us for a period during pre-season. And Tyrese Fornah, on loan from Derby, in midfield was very good for them too.

Yeah I thought he was a talented player, he had the physicality to compete in the lower level English leagues but he was a lot more skilful than the average player. I think he was just not very confident when he first arrived and when he did depart it sounded like he never really settled here which was a shame. That scorpion kick goal is arguably one of the the best Notts' goals, he was robbed by not evening getting nominated for the puskas awards! ????⚽

It's like they thought maybe if we change the name to something that unites the fans, they'll go for it... On Tuesday, A22 said the latest plans for the Unify League would see 96 clubs take part in the men's competition in four leagues. The top two leagues, "Star" and "Gold," would each include 16 clubs, divided into groups of eight. The "Blue" and "Union" leagues would host 32 clubs each, also in groups of eight. In the league stage, teams would face the others in their group, home and away, before qualifiers progress to the knockout stage. The semi-finals and final would be one-off matches, played at neutral venues. Clubs would qualify based on annual domestic performance, with matches taking place in midweek. So is this the elite clubs effectively taking over the Champions/Europa League? Or is the plan to have it alongside the current Champions/Europa League, domestic leagues and cups! It's totally bonkers and the big clubs constantly moan about having to play too many games, but if a big pay check comes its ok is it?

I really don't know, it can't just be Rodri getting injured, even though he is a fantastic footballer, City have a whole squad of great players. Clearly the players aren’t very confident, I only watched the second half of the Manchester Derby and I was amazed at how little they actually passed the ball forward, or took a player on and just avoiding doing anything with an element of risk. They were slow and made the wrong choices on the ball a lot – it was nothing like the Man City that have been so dominate. Pep is probably just knackered now, he had a break after managing Barca but then he’s done 11 straight seasons with Bayern and City. And at the top level where it’s been high pressure to constantly win titles & European trophies. Klopp left Liverpool because he needed a break, I think Pep probably needs one too.

Bit harder for the younger fans to compile a list of their greatest Notts managers... ???????? Ian Burchnall and Keith Curle get into my top 5 by default!

I think everyone will behind the team come Saturday against Bradford and whilst we are still in a good position I can’t lie and say I don’t find our recent form worrying. We are falling into some bad habits now, like the slow starts, kamikaze passing from the back and just general hopeless to put the opposition’s defence under pressure. Even earlier in the season before we lost most of our attackers, we had games against Port Vale and Gillingham where we really struggled to create any clear-cut chances. Yes we have been better defensively, but for me it is coming at a cost to our attacking play. I understand we’ve had injuries to key attackers but we've still had a large amount of possession and we should be able to do so much more with the ball. We've provided Jatta with very few chances in the last batch of matches, the inverted wingbacks don't really cause teams any issues and I don't understand what our attacking midfielders are supposed to be doing at times now. Of course, Dan and Jodi will improve us, but we can’t just rely on these two all the time. I mentioned the lack of assists from every other player bar McGoldrick in another post. Is everyone else awful or has the coaching not adapted well enough to get the best out of our other players?

I agree that was the worst performance of the season, out-played (which I don’t think has really happened yet) and out fought which is really disappointing. I still think the inverted wingbacks are more of hinderance than a help. And I hate seeing Dan Crowley spend more time in his own half than the oppositions. But the worrying trend right now is that we’ve now managed to combine our inability to create very little with the ability to concede sloppy goals. That’s three games on the spin where we’ve conceded from passing the ball into the middle of the pitch now… Todays was the worst though. I still think we can play out from the back but we’ve got to be so much smarter. We still pass it around far too slow at times, we were getting hassled and harried but knocked it about at a snail’s pace again. If want you want to beat a press, without going direct, you’ve got to pass is it so much quicker and slicker. That was also a strong team today, if Jodi started that’s arguably our best side… And I still think we’d have lost 3-0.

Middlesbrough 3-1 Millwall Stoke City 1-0 Cardiff City Charlton Athletic 0-0 Mansfield Town Rotherham United 1-0 Northampton Town AFC Wimbledon 1-1 Doncaster Rovers Grimsby Town 1-2 Crewe Alexandra Altrincham 2-1 Sutton United Southend United 2-0 Hartlepool United ????

Great little interview this, well done to the lads on Notts County Talk for getting him on, it was a very enjoyable listen. Glad to hear how settled he feels here, we know how important that can be in football so I hope that might put Spurs off from potentially recalling him to send him to a higher league...

Given the club said they were looking at players in the National League at the club forum I’m pretty confident we’ll have been tracking Jack Stevens. As the article says he has played upfront before but this season he has played more on the wing, as an inverted winger and really excelled there. Whilst he's clearly a talented player he’d either be played as an attacking midfielder or a wingback for us. So the club would need to be confident he can be just as effective in a central attacking role or be able to take on more defensive responsibility to play as a wing-back. His stats have jumped considerably this season so lots of clubs will now know about him. His contract is up in the summer but I think the wiser move would be to get him before (if we really wanted him).

We will be fresh for this one after missing out from last weeks match, so I've got high hopes! Robertson, Platt and Abbott should all be back now and we'll possibly even have Crowley back on the bench ???? It's not exactly the most intimidating of places to go and if Carlisle and Grimsby can beat them at home than we should be more than capable of picking up the 3 points!

Exclusive: Notts County plotting to sign Nottingham Forest's Joe Gardner WWW.FOOTBALLINSIDER247.COM Football Insider has learned that Nottingham Forest forward Joe Gardner is a loan target for EFL clubs ahead of the January window. The first rumours are starting... Unless we are going to move some players on I don't think we'll need that many additions. We are pretty stacked with defenders and midfielders, the issue right now is the injuries but everyone should be fit and back by January! Is Jevani Brown here on a season long loan? I wouldn't mind if he returned to Bristol so we could bring in another forward to be honest. I do think another wingback would be useful, finding someone who is great at both attacking and defending is tricky though as players at this level always seem to be better at one than the other.

Given its sportswashing and involvement in sport all over the world now sadly a world cup in Saudi Arabia was always going to happen at some point. I don’t think having the tournament across North America is that bad though, from the east coast of America it’s actually quicker to get to the northern parts of Mexico then it is the west coast. And equally both Montreal and Vancouver are right on the border with the US too. Football is a lot more popular in Mexico than the US and Canada I'm glad that their fans can experience it. I like Portugal and Spain but Morrocco is a bit meh, I get respecting laws in other places but it doesn’t mean I have to agree with them. My girlfriend suggested it as a potential holiday but I did say that given we aren’t married they’ll probably force us to have separate rooms… She still wanted to go!

Shouldn't take them long to gel as a team then! I wonder if Michael Doyle will sign any more of his old teammates in January?

MK have 2 games in hand, and unfortunately are in really good form now I'd expect them to break into the top 3 very soon. Not that surprising we dropped, had the game gone ahead and we'd won we'd be 4th - just have to make sure we do beat Colchester when the game gets rearranged!

I thought it would be a potential fire risk, I knew they’d have to do something clever otherwise it would never get approved and it seems they have… Zaha Hadid Architects: ‘Why our all-wood Forest Green stadium won’t be a fire risk’ WWW.ARCHITECTSJOURNAL.CO.UK The world has changed a lot since we originally designed the Forest Green stadium in 2016 – not leas... I don’t mind the look of it, it does feel the “bowl stadiums” are more akin to new 40,000+ seater stadiums so it’ll be interesting to see how it looks with just the 5,000 seats, it could look a touch strange. I wouldn't have thought a new stadium was high on their priorities though, they aren’t exactly selling out week after week!

Unfortunate but the right decision, had they fallen and injured someone the club would've been in serious trouble. It's only the first game we've had postponed so it's not like we have to worry about a fixture pile up -assuming the rest of the winter isn't wild!

Yes, great news indeed. From his past few appearances he seems to be back his best and we know how important he is to how we want to play. I think even had it got to the end of the season he 100% would've been offered a new contract and I'm confident he would've re-signed but it makes sense to get it all sorted as early as possible if you can. So credit to the club for getting it all sorted!

Reynolds goal from the "official highlights" - judging by the quality it appears to be have filmed by someone's webcam from the 1990s. Anyway, he was involved in the build up and it's a great finish!

???????? When you see him doing so well, it does look like a mistake. And right now Gordon who has replaced him, isn't exactly excelling. But I'm not going to deny that for a lot of last season I thought both Aaron and Jodi on the wings were a touch overkill in terms of overloading the side with attacking players. Like Jodi, he's basically a winger playing at wingback. Maybe with the new defence things would've been better, I think chances are he'd have been fine because we are a lot stronger at the back now. However he is clearly a lot more effective and happier on the right hand side, would we have seen him play here though? The wingbacks are probably the most different aspect to Stuart Maynard's coaching so it's more than likely he'd have played more on the left this season. I don't think he'd get as many assists playing here, cutting inside isn't his strength. He was all about using his pace to get in behind and staying really wide on that right hand side. The wingbacks don't get in behind as much now either and I think it would've been even harder for him on the left-hand side as he'd have to use his weaker foot more often too... Potential positional issues aside, I think the squad would be stronger with him in it.

Luton Town 1-2 Swansea City Plymouth Argyle 1-0 Oxford United Blackpool 1-1 Rotherham United Cambridge United 1-0 Shrewsbury Town Crawley Town 3-2 Stevenage Gillingham 0-1 Salford City Harrogate Town 1-2 AFC Wimbledon Newport County 0-0 Carlisle United ???? (I'd even bet my rented accommodation on this result!)