menzinho

Following on with the embarrassment with the defence comment. I guess they thought the “style” would continue into the FL, in terms of keeping teams off the ball simply means they’ll have less time to attack and score and that it would still work. I thought we’d concede more this season but did anyone honestly think it would be this bad? I underestimated the step up in quality, we’re good enough to be at this level, but we can’t steamroll teams (in general) like we did in the NL. I still kind of think the goals scored is at the expense of our goals conceded too. We set out to attack, the team is usually overloaded with attackers and we push everyone high up the pitch. Both the GS and GC kind of need to be looked at the same time, I think there is a correlation between the too. We’ve still got a +3 GD, the funny thing is if we’d have had a season where we’d scored 50 and conceded 47 I don’t think anyone would have any real concerns… Maybe I’m completely wrong here but I think it’s actually easier to fix by making some personnel changes and tactical changes. Usually scoring goals is the hardest thing to do in football so I’d rather, if I had to pick, have to sort the issues out with the defence. Agree with the ticket prices, sounds like they are going up but I'm hopeful it's by a very small margin. I'm not sure a market research group consisting of just Paul, who is a successful businessman, is a fair reflection of the financial situation of all Notts fans! Yes, it was a bit awkward when he kind of unequivocally agreed with idea of raising prices...

I think Jodi will win it and I have no issue if that's the outcome because he's had a record breaking assist season. I voted for Crowley though, in terms of levels I think he's been our most consistent player this season.

Ashby Hammond 6.5 - Made a few good saves and had a lot to do, probably could’ve done better for their first though. Brindley 5 - Didn’t do a lot wrong, didn’t do a lot right either though. I thought his positioning was poor and he struggled take the ball forward. Baldwin 3 - Why does he try and turn so sharply when he’s under pressure, there was a forward pass on as well. Generally, a night to forget. Cameron 5 – Looked flustered and panicked in our own box too many times. At least he tried to bring the ball out of defence. Nemane 6 – Our most dangerous outlet, actually got at the Stockport defence. Struggled when moved to RB. Jones 5 – Didn’t really help us defensively first half, (I know it’s not his strength) but equally he didn’t cause them much trouble down either wing. Didn’t look like League 2 player of the season in that game. Bostock 3 – Completely off the pace, barely won a challenge, too many touches too many backward passes. Austin 4 – Ran around but struggled to get involved or do anything of note. Crowley 7 – It probably helped his teammates were so poor but in a game like that you can see why Arsene Wenger rated him. Good on the ball, tried to get us going forwards and scored a great goal. Langstaff 5.5 – The usual effort was there, missed a decent chance first half but scored a decent goal second half. McGouldrick 3.5 – Looked slow, again too many touches at times and his shooting was poor. Subs: Robertson 6.5 - It was a shame, given the other midfield performances, he didn’t start. Got at the Stockport players and stopped them playing through us (a bit). O’Brien 5 – Better than Austin and Bostock, still had a couple of sloppy moments on the ball. Randall 4 - Just kept shifting the ball when he got it, didn’t really want to take their defence on. And he cannot defend well, if he’d have backed off anymore for that last goal he’d have been in the stands. I thought we missed Jatta and Macari, somehow both are both injured though… I don’t what’s happening with this constant cycle of players picking up injuries this season. Chicksen, I assume is injured again? And we had to recall Mahovo because I guess Rawlinson and Tobi are injured too now... Are we training on some sort of ancient burial site where if you run over certain parts you get cursed?

I know Stockport are good but we seriously don’t help ourselves... I’ll get the moan about the ref out of the way first. The first penalty is so bad it’s unbelievable, it’s blasted at Crowley from about 5 yards away and he was moving his arms into his body anyway. He didn’t make himself bigger and the ball would’ve been blocked by his chest anyway! I didn’t think the Cameron one was a penalty either because it looked to me like he took the ball cleanly before the two players naturally collided. Luckily our performance was so bad the ref didn’t actually cost us. I know we scored 2 but we created one good chance with Langstaff and then until they scored their 4th, we really struggled to create much. It was, once again, a masterclass in how not to defend. In general our players were poor on and off the ball, constantly taking 4 or 5 touches instead of 1 or 2. Their defence and general off the ball play showed us what we should be doing. Once they went 4 up they relaxed and allowed us to get back in the game but even after we’d scored 2 they were still very dangerous. Even without the penalties, 5 goals didn't flatter them. I know it’s easy to say in hindsight but it was so naïve playing 3 defenders, and being so open against a team that had scored as many goals as us before we kicked off. I know Stockport have spent a lot to bring in good players but we’ve got to be smarter on the pitch to combat it. We let teams have too many shots against us and we’re far to easy to get at. That fourth goal kind of summed up how easy we are to get at. Brindley is out of position, so one ball gets knocked into a massive space and they’re in on goal, one pass! How can you expect to not concede! It’s driving me mad. Yes we desperately need some new defenders but surely playing just 3 defenders and then the rest of the team as attackers isn’t the way forward.

Well did the people of Gambia outdo the US and Canada there! Notts training camp in the summer confirmed as a reward? ???? ???????? I take it all back, definitely a serious award, well done Jatta!

Yeah I'm not quite sure what some fans are realistically expecting from this. A lot has already been said in the statement the board put out earlier, fair enough if you don't agree with it but you're not going to get a different answer a few weeks later. And considering they themselves have admitted the season has been disappointing season, it's not been disastrous so I'm not quite sure what questions are even that tough for them to answer? I think it'll be interesting to watch but at the same time part of me feels like I'll know some of answers they'll give. If for example they question why didn't we sign any defenders, I'm sure the answer will simply be; some of our targets weren't available/ some wanted too much money/ some signed for other clubs...

I’d have given the manager of the season to either Pete Wild or Lee Bell because I think their current position is more impressive given their resources. Mansfield, with the quality and investment have finished roughly where I’d expect them too. Player is harder to judge as I only get to see the Notts players on a regular basis but I’m very pleased it's been awarded to Jodi. From that team of the year awards the two who stick in my memory are Rob Apter who terrorised us away at Tranmere and Louis Reed in midfield for Mansfield. As for what the future holds, well there were rumours about Jodi being a target for Wrexham at the start of the season. Only the Wrexham board will know how true they were but I can see a lot of clubs being interested in Jodi after the season he’s had. I think it all comes down to what Jodi wants to do, he’s only got one year left on his contract come the end of the season. If he doesn’t want to sign a longer contract with us I think we’d be better offer selling him then letting him go on a free. Obviously, I hope he does sign an extension at the end of the season with us. We'd be mad not to offer him one! Langstaff signed a new contract at the start of the season until 2027 so I can’t see a new deal for him anytime soon. I don't think Wrexham would bid for him though. It would cost them a lot and they've already got Mullin who pretty much plays his role. Phil Parkinson likes to partner Mullin with a big forward upfront so I think Wrexham will be looking for a younger version of Ollie Palmer for them next season.

Pretty impressive to only have three shots on target and score them all! Maybe that makes up for all the bad luck we've had. It sounded like a decent performance but I don’t think their keeper really had to too much to do other than just pick the ball out of the net three times. That said Ashby-Hammond wasn’t that troubled either but it did sound like there were a few scrambles in the box that just didn’t fall Walsall’s way. Stuart Maynard was impressed in his post-match interview and I’m glad things seem to have turned in his favour. Be interesting to read the comments from those who went/watched.

Yes @Robbie thanks for the correction, I misread the sentence the 248 games will be broadcast over a period of 5 years! I thought they'd have done well to show to 248 games in one season!

Congrats to Stockport and Wrexham, it’s probably better for us that they’ve gone up as they are the two biggest spenders in the league. And Mansfield’s promotion like you say is pretty much inevitable, again probably good for us as we always lose against them! I still find it really strange to see the celebrations from people in North America that until about 3 years ago had never heard of Wrexham…

Considering the owners are funding the whole project they were well in their rights to name it the Reedtz Brothers Appreciation Sanctuary! I’m sure some previous owners would’ve given themselves a name check (or added some sort of mural). I’d have called it McGoldrinck's…

We've probably been better away from home (that Swindon game aside) overall since Luke Maynard came in. Walsall are pretty good at home though, they've only lost 3 times at the Bescott this season so a draw wouldn't be a bad result. Think we're starting to see a bit more consistency in team selection too now, I watched the training the video the club put out and it looked like everyone that isn't a long term injury is pretty much fit now. Robertson would go straight back into the team for me over Bostock. Weirdly I still think we're more balanced with Chicken in the LWB role, because he can actually defend. I get leaving out Jodi is madness though, I just think with both Nemane and him as wingbacks we can be "got at" a lot easier...

They are going to broadcast a minimum of 248 L2 games! That’s 45% of the season’s games! Quite a dramatic jump in interest given they’ve shown about 30 L2 games this season… Looks to be quite a financial gain, and that’ll only serve to drive a larger gap between the NL and EFL. From a purely selfish and just Notts perspective it’s probably good for us. For the wider game in general, it’s not great. I’ve always thought a free-to-air channel should get some sport throughout the season, particularly lower league football. It always made me laugh when on BT they used to advertise a Champions League fixture mid-game between the likes of Maidenhead and Barnet…

I’ve stumbled across a table that might be similar to what was in the Reedtz Brothers recent statement. It ranks the teams on how well they create chances (Expected Goals - XG) and how easily the opposition create chances against you (Expected Goals Against - XGA). And then it calculates the points from that. You can view the table here: https://footballxg.com/xg-league-tables/ You then need to click on the drop down menu on the right hand side which says "League" and change it to: England - league 2. A little XG explanation for those who need it: XG, it’s a is a metric designed to measure the probability of a shot resulting in a goal. So if one player has a chance from two yards out in front of an open goal, and another player has a shot from 40 yards out and near the touchline, clearly one has a far greater chance of scoring than the other. XG simply assigns a value to every shot. So if you are producing a high XG but not scoring many it likely means the players are simply not good at finishing (or you keep coming up against very good GK, unlikely though). Whilst at the same time if your XGA is very high but you’re not conceding many goals it probably means you’ve got a great keeper amongst a bit of luck (cos the chances of the opposition constantly missing chances would be slim). This is my first time seeing this table too, I know a little bit about XG but I’m not claiming to be an expert. I certainly don’t think it’s the be all and end all of stats as I know there are many aspects of football that you can’t really measure and you can still have a dangerous attack that doesn’t end in a shot for whatever reason. But I get how it can be helpful when assessing a team’s performance in terms of how well they attack and defend. It's helpful that they’ve used colour coding, green for good and red for bad (there are no surprises for the colours for our chances created and conceded here!) So in this table we are in 8th position and if the games were decided by XG we would've had 6 more points. We’re very good at creating chances, we’re also very good at giving the opposition good chances too. Interestingly we are overperforming our XG, but to be honest all good attacking teams will usually do this. Even though we've conceded the most goals, by our XGA stats we aren't the worst in the league - just the third worse! It is still high/bad though and giving away all those penalties won't have helped either. That said based on these stats it suggests we’ve conceded 8 goals more than we should've. That would most likely come down to a few long-range goals but also probably some shots our keepers should’ve saved… You can change the "start date" by just typing in "20/01/2024" to see the table from SM's time (that was his first game). Whilst you can’t argue the fact we’re bottom of the form table (only by a point now though), we’re mid-table based on XG/XGA and this data has us with 9 more points in that time period too. I guess this is why the board are more hopeful than the majority of us fans!

Great to be nominated, that's almost a win in itself given the way this award is decided. Like who else would a Notts fan vote for?! It can't really be a serious award. It's not really about judging who has performed the best in the month it's just about which club can garner the most votes from it's supporters... And one club involved has acquired quite a few North American fans... So congratulations to Paul Mullin!

It’s funny how the two clubs’ results have almost mirrored each other after losing their head coaches. I guess it shows what a good job Stuart Maynard was doing there, in the same way we know what a good job LW had done with us. Pretty sure the majority of the Wealdstone fan base would want SM back. But I am hoping we’ve turned a corner now and he can become successful here, our owners clearly think he can/will be.

Not sure they actually needed to put that statement out to be honest. I think I’d have just waited until the season had finished, especially as it seems to confirm that SM will be here next season. After the good result yesterday there’s certainly more positivity and I don’t think we’ll lose all our remaining games, but we could and even I would struggle to have much optimism about next season with SM at the helm. They’re almost predicting, and I’m hoping, that we’ll finish these last games with good results, because otherwise that statement could massively backfire. In terms of their view of the season on a whole, they aren’t panicking which is absolutely what you need from the top. And they’ve admitted it’s been disappointing. Head coach aside not sure there’s much to argue with. I’d genuinely be more worried if they had said we’re abandoning the plan that has served us well for 4 years because we’ve suddenly had a dip in results for a few months.

It's only injuries that have stopped him from playing at a higher level, he'll get back there but luckily for the time being he's ours to enjoy. We’ve just got to get him out of a wingback role though next season haven’t we? Defending just isn’t his strong point, he needs to be attacking more often than not. Some have mentioned that subbing him on yesterday actually caused us a few problems and unbalanced us a bit as the defence got shifted around to accommodate him… Luckily it all worked out ok in the end. The goal was quality, he glides with the ball at his feet.

Got to win it really or at worst put in a really good performance and only lose due to factors out of our control (a.k.a a dodgy ref). We can't afford to not take the energy and sharpness on the ball from the game against MK. If Harrogate do chose to sit back and condense the space then we've just got to keep probing, committing players into their box and keep challenging Harrogate's defence - I know our defence is poor but we've not conceded 9 in one game this season! I'd go with the same team that started against MK if possible. I think we get a touch more balance having a more natural defender as one of the wingbacks. And that way we don't need to panic if the game is tight going into the last 30 cos we could potentially bring on Jones, Ceds and McGoldrick! (Good luck to the tired Harrogate defenders there). And if the midfield do look/get a bit tired, given I'm not convinced Bostock is playing at full-fitness yet I'd be bringing on J'OB to keep the energy levels as high as possible. Time is running out to get a home win and once again this feels like a massive chance. Off the back of a positive result against MK, this can't become another missed opportunity/false dawn.

I think when Palmer got injured, we all suddenly realised just how important he is. In terms of eye-catching play he doesn’t do that much but his positioning and ability to just keep receiving the ball is insanely good. I’m hoping the injury won’t have impacted his ability, because a player of his ability can only improve us. And I’ve said it before but I think him and Robertson will form a formidable partnership. The hope I’m still clinging to is that bar Mansfield this season I don’t think we’ve been outplayed by anyone and although the results recently haven’t been great, I still don’t think we’re that far off being a good side in L2. It’s reassuring to hear Stuart Maynard talking about addressing a lack of physicality too and that work is going on behind the scenes to address the recruitments short-comings this season. Add a couple of top defenders and goalkeeper (easier said then done) and we’ll have a really decent squad. Now I just need to see a good end to the season to give me confidence that SM can be successful here.

If Macca really wanted to leave he would've turned our contract offer down and either asked the club to sell him or he'd just wait until he could leave on a free. So I too think he's quite happy to stay for the time being. No-one knows if his contract has a release clause in or what the valuation is. The £1.5m figure was banded about over the summer, he's likely to finish the season on 25 goals (hopefully more) so yes there probably will be interest in him and I think the valuation won't be far off that. However we're under no pressure to sell him and he won't be cheap if clubs are serious about signing him. We won't sell to league 2 club and the only way most league 1 clubs will be able to sign him is if they sell a player for a couple of million. And it's probably still a bit of risk for Championship clubs with him jumping two levels. I think a lot of it all comes down to who moves where over the summer, and which clubs ultimately have the finances to buy him.

I had been reading more social media comments after the Swindon game so I feared the crowd on Monday would be pretty flat with a significant number less in attendance but that didn’t turn out to be true. In fact it was pretty much behind the team for the whole game, a few mumbles and grumbles when MK’s 3rd goal went in but that is only natural. Once we started attacking again and pushed for the equaliser the crowd urged the players on. It’s nowhere near as "toxic" as social media makes out, which to be fair is impressive given our struggles second half of the season. I’m still waiting until the end of the season until I make my mind up, but if we carry on/improve in the last 5 games I don’t think all these threats of “SM out or I won’t renew my season ticket” will come true. Sure they’ll be a handful of stubborn people, but finances are still very tight for a lot of us so maybe it’s just the ideal excuse. If we sign two defenders at the start of the window, off the back of a positive end to the season, I think that will reignite the hope with most of the fans.

Can’t really fault the first half, they score out of nothing but we were a lot more pro-active in trying to create chances and deservedly equalised. But we kind of sat back too much once we scored our 2nd. I get that it’s natural to sit back and protect the lead, but we still needed to provide a threat on the counter and keep the intensity with our pressing. We had a really poor 30 minutes where MK were in control and grabbed 2 goals. Their triple sub helped them, whereas I thought for 20 minutes Bostock really slowed us down. At least we showed a bit of character and got the equaliser but it’s a tad frustrating to score once we went behind. Overall given our second half performance a draw was probably a fair result. You can’t fault the effort and there seems to be no issues with the relationship between SM and themselves. Missed opportunities is how I feel best sums up SM time so far and seeing that Sutton put 3 past Swindon makes that result even worse. Today was better and MK are a good side but we desperately need a home win before the season is over.

We’re either getting an Easter miracle of our own or I’ll be watching some poor bloke get crucified… The maddest thing about all of this is since LW left in those 3 months we’ve picked up 9 points yet somehow, we are only 9 points off the play-offs! It could be 6 if we win against MK! How is that possible given we’ve only picked up 2 wins this year? We should be something like 20 points adrift by now! I agree with @Robbie pride is all the motivation you should need especially when people are doubting your character and ability, you should want to show the fans you care and whilst I don’t think lack of effort has ever been the criticism given the results have been so poor we are desperately need a performance to be proud of on Monday.

I don’t want to get to end of the season thinking the sensible thing the club should’ve done when Swansea approached us was to lock LW in his office, smash his phone and let him out after Swansea had appointed someone else! But it's looking that way, 6 games left now and Swindon was one of our easier games there…