menzinho

I feel like a lot of our youngsters over the years have ended up at Alfreton due to how close it is. I'll pick one of them... Pierce Bird

Good luck to the lad! They've made a mistake showing us our shirt without the sponsor on though, where can I get one like that!?

Man United are in desperate need of direction from the top; What is their plan? What is their philosophy? What are the types of player they want to sign? Nobody really knew under Ten Hag and it's a big job for the manager to come in and solve everything. Just look at us, when Stuart Maynard came in he didn't really change much he made some subtle changes but the main reason for our struggles was that the defence was in desperate need of better players. After 1 pre-season everything has seemingly clicked into place. It’s helped by that fact it’s evolution rather than revolution at Notts now, we have a clear identity and goal. I’ve no idea what the plan is at Man Utd. Amorim, is by all accounts a very good coach, but he tends to play 3 at the back something United hadn’t planned for this season and he won’t have the luxury of a big transfer budget either when he inevitably will want to bring in his own players for his style. Man Utd would do well to look at the likes of Bournemouth, Brighton and Brentford in terms of strategy and planning. These are small clubs on the up, I can’t see the decline at Man Utd stopping just because they have a new manager.

Recruitment is the one of the most important parts of football and if you get it badly wrong in the summer, you’re basically fighting against the tide all season. We made the wrong decision to not strengthen our defence when we went up, was that the head coaches decision or recruitment? Our recruitment this summer has accounted for that now though. We are quite lucky as ever since the Bros came in it’s something that has massively improved, you are never going to get every signing right but we seem to get a lot more good players than bad.

It’s great to see he his doing well again, albeit kind of back where he started before he joined us. I still think Cal is a good player but where would he play in our team? Wasn’t this the issue we had before we eventually sold him… We don't play wingers and I'm pretty sure we tried him at wingback against Kings Lynn or Altrincham away and it just didn't work.

Sam Allardyce? No, this is the final stage of the David Moyes redemption arc!

It’s tricky because there are genuinely lots of very good candidates like you say. Jatta and McGoldrick have led the line very well, and Didzy has played in the deeper role and been just as effective there too. Bass has been very good but there have been a few games where he hasn’t actually had a lot to do. Platt and Bedeau have come in and just helped to completely change our defence. But I think because some of his early season performances were outstanding, Crowley just takes it for me.

Belshaw was Harrogate's best player, by a mile. I wonder if he'll have any regrets about not getting to ever play for us though as I'm 99% sure he also supports us! At 34 and with Bass looking like he could be our No.1 for a good few seasons now I think the chance might have just passed him.

That’s a shame the picture is too big, sounds lovely though. I’ve got a walk that I occasionally do round a lake in the woods near to where I live. I went last week and the colours of the orange leaves against the clear blue sky were very striking. I noticed the shops were noticeably busier with youths loitering around when I went out for my lunch break, so it’s half-term round here! Quiet week for me but I’ve got a Halloween party on Friday night which I’m dreading. It’s my girlfriend’s work that are doing it, so I won’t know anyone and dressing up just isn’t really my thing anymore. I really don’t understand how Halloween has become such a big event over here, I kind of understand it more for kids but for adults to actually celebrate it, I find it very strange.

Everyone actually played well so it’s harder! But that was the first time Palmer looked back to his best for me, he was the main man in the middle without Crowley today.

Think 1-0 flattered them a bit, we’ve created fewer chances than that this season and scored more! The performance was very good though, pretty much total dominance. We started the game much better than we have recent games and the tempo was good too, Brown and McGoldrick were dropping into the pockets of spaces and helping us create some decent openings. The goal felt inevitable and it was excellent play from Tsaroulla and Bedeau who dragged a defender out of position for Jatta's winner. Everytime Harrogate cleared the ball or tried to break our defenders were excellent in getting there first more often than not, they didn’t exactly have much box defending to do but they pretty much made Bass a spectator for that game. I felt a bit sorry for those Harrogate fans, they had nothing to get excited about all game a bit of a wasted journey and sadly their team take the unfortunate prize of being the worst team to visit Meadow Lane this season (so far). Funny how in 2020 Harrogate deservedly beat us in that final and looked to be going on up to better things, now 4 years later the roles have reversed.

Yep, following on from @Dripsey3's info, Harrogate have only won 1 game away this season at that was a 1-0 win at Colchester (who aren't very good), they've drawn 3 and lost 2. And they've had a pretty easy set of away games up until now too as the only decent away team they've played is Crewe (3-0 loss), the rest were teams in the bottom 8 of the table! Can't go into it thinking it's an easy game, even though on paper it is, because that's when things tend to go horribly wrong. We are pretty good at batting off these mid to lower league teams though so I'd be disappointed it we didn't win because even with or mini-injury crisis we are still have enough quality to get a good result. I'm hoping to see us more on point and fluent in attack like in our earlier home games this season.

Derby County 2-1 Hull City Plymouth Argyle 0-1 Preston North End Cambridge United 1-0 Burton Albion Lincoln City 2-2 Stockport County Bradford City 1-1 Doncaster Rovers Newport County 1-2 Fleetwood Town Barnet 4-2 Rochdale ???? Ebbsfleet United 1-1 Wealdstone

Where are the plátanos (bananas) to represent the Canary Islands on that map of Spain!? These are muy rico (very tasty) having sampled quite a few!

I think it’s a mixture of both, but good players can make an average coach look good. Take that Munto season when we signed a lot of really good players, we still had Ian McParland in charge and we started that season pretty well but you could see the difference when Steve Coterill came in. You are right though, as equally a good coach can make average players look good! I still think Luke Williams is a very good coach though and I’d argue getting Swansea in the top 10 in the Championship is more of a challenge than getting Notts in the top 10 in League 2.

For the inverted wingbacks I’ll say it’s not been a disaster because Tsaroulla had a good game against Barrow and likewise Gordon against Chesterfield, but it’s not exactly been a revelation either. There have been games where they have struggled too. Personally, I’m still not too sure, I think Jodi is a bit of an exception as his skill level far exceeds our other wide players and he spent his whole career playing as a right-sided attacker before he came to us. I just can’t get past how they have to do so much more with their weaker foot at times, especially crossing. It's a lot harder to try and dribble down the wing using your weaker foot too. Being able to come inside and shoot is good, and I get that makes sense when you play inverted wingers/inside forwards but is the main role of a wingback to try and score?

I have really enjoyed watching all our new defensive recruits and Macari who seems to get a tad forgotten but he’s been playing very well this season too. We are stacked with options now and there’s no lack of competition which was really missing last season.

Yeah, I think he’d have scored more (but then he’s only got to score 2 to achieve that!) I was surprised Macca never went to Swansea in the end, the style would’ve suited him more and he’d have likely got more of a chance under Luke Williams. Was there some sort of gentlemen’s agreement that meant he wouldn’t come in for our players? Swansea are about where they should be to be honest, in their last 3 seasons they finished, 15th, 10th and 14th their squad isn't good enough to be challenging for promotion in my opinion. Funny how currently this season Swansea have played 11 games and only conceded 7 goals! Maybe LW could've sorted our defensive problems out after all...

I would think the recruitment has had a big effect; in that they bought in 23 new players this season ???? The players can probably just about remember each other’s names by now!

Yeah it is quite shocking when you look at the back of some ice-cream tubs and it’s just a list of chemicals! What happened to making it by churning milk/cream adding in some real ingredients and freezing, is it such a difficulty for these producers? When I got back in from work this evening I noticed the skip was missing a few items. My girlfriend told me she saw a van drive up and take a load of stuff out this afternoon! I'm off to play football this evening, it's outdoors on an Astroturf pitch and just a social thing really. More of a kick about than an actual game as it was started by someone who just wanted to play football and it not be too serious. I really enjoy it as it is very relaxed.

The problem with the Munto season was that it was always going to attract those types of players. You get to drop down a league(s), play easier opposition (so yes you will look a better player) and you get paid more, quite a lot more as was the supposed case at Notts! In a way the whole Sol Campbell saga probably put a stop to anymore players just coming for the money. But I agree with @upthepies, it is funny how Sol got all the criticism because he was essentially the first one to figure out all was not as it seemed. I guess us as fans just didn’t want to hear it…

McGoldrick and Tsaroulla were the best for me. Didzy did a lot of good work and looked our most creative player. Tsaroulla had a couple of great runs where he dribbled past a few players and got a dangerous shot/cross off. And at times when he got forward there would be no-one within about 30 yards of him to support him!

No idea what that penalty was for, I didn’t even see it in the replay so I’ll have to watch it back. Is this all to make up for the fact we conceded a load of soft pens last season or are we on some sort of deal where we get 5 pens before the refs can award our opposition one this season? Not so much a grind that one because we played that like we were the team that was 1-0 up. There was just no urgency to get the ball forward. I’d like to know how many passes were played in our own half there (a lot). Why for so much of that match were both Palmer and Crowley playing just 5 yards ahead of our defence though, they were in a line of 5 at times and then it just made it impossible to pass forward. So frustrating to watch, I can see a good team here, but it was just way too cautious at times. In that second half in particular when Barrow stepped off us a bit we just played the safe ball far too often. We had moments in that game where we’d make a couple of passes across the back, get the ball to a player with open space to run into and they’d just pass it sideways, again! I think Crowley and Platt did drive with the ball into space once but there were so many opportunities there to do it. First half was poor but we just played into their hands by trying to pass to feet all the time when we were being pressed, it was crying out for a ball into space/some diagonal balls over the top (and someone to actually run into it). And we could’ve even been 1-0 down earlier too, Hinchy’s dodgy pass that resulted in McDonald having to rush back and pull over Newby(?) should’ve probably been a penalty for them. Feel for him as he’s young that he got hooked so early, he wasn’t playing well but to be honest at that point no-one was. But then after all that we get a draw! That’s us up to 3rd, no idea how at this moment, is it just a league with no real stand out teams this season?

I was woken up surprisingly early by the sound of a skip being dropped off just outside my flat this morning. It was for a bungalow across the road where a lady I would chat to every now and again lived. She sadly had a stroke earlier in the year and passed away. I chatted to one of her sons briefly to ask how he was doing, he said the bungalow had sold so they needed to sort through the house. I noticed he was chucking some rather decent stuff inside the skip. There was a small tv, he said he had no use for but still worked. Now, I didn't need a tv and it wasn't my intention to use this as a kind of side-street Argos but I couldn't help but notice there were some other perfectly good looking objects inside this skip, an ice-cream maker being one of them. I asked if it worked and he said he thought so but there were no instructions for it, he said I was welcome to have it if I liked and anything else for that matter... So long story short, I got myself an ice-cream maker (it does work), an easel for painting and a pair of stools that just needed a bit of sanding/re-painting. It's a bit sad to throw away things that still work, I guess maybe some people find it hard to go through their loved ones items and just want to move on but I'm glad I rescued (and still might rescue a few more things) from a landfill site.

Cardiff City 1-1 Portsmouth Leeds United 2-0 Watford ???? Bristol Rovers 1-0 Shrewsbury Town Peterborough United 1-1 Blackpool Fleetwood Town 2-1 Crewe Alexandra Tranmere Rovers 1-1 Grimsby Town Dagenham & Redbridge 2-1 Eastleigh Tamworth 1-0 Yeovil Town