menzinho

Wimbledon have had mixed results of late after a very good start so it’s not a bad time to be playing them. They recently conceded 4 against Accrington and Morecambe but up until then I’d say their defence was pretty solid, probably one of the best in the league stats wise! They did beat Doncaster in their last league game, so maybe just a blip then (hopefully not!). James Tilley, Al Hamadi and Armani Little (he caused us problems when he was at Torquay) are their best attacking players. If Bugiel starts he is good at holding the ball up and bringing others into play. Judging by their passing stats they are a bit of mixed bag in terms of style, although they will probably be more direct against us and I’m expecting them to press us. So with that in mind, for my team it’s very similar to those that have already been suggested. I’d get Brinds in the middle of the back 3 (genuinely think he’s better here) with Macari taking his role as the RCB. Not sure I’d start Gosling yet but I’m hopeful Chicksen might be ready for the first team. So for me I’d only make two changes from the Bradford game, Macari in for Baldwin and Chicks in for Randall. Another tough away game, no idea what the score will be but I’d take a point.

Slocombe 7 – Some moments he was very good, a couple of times he misjudged whether to come out or stay. Actually, had to make some decent saves second half. Brindley 6.5 – A couple of good blocks second half, did better defensively than he did when on the ball. A times he really struggled to find a forward pass. Baldwin 7 – Generally, very solid, shame he did that awful pass which was intercepted and lead to their first. Cameron 6.5 – Generally ok, nearly caught out when he went a tad to far up the field. Nemane 6 – A times in the first half he was a real outlet, but he struggled in the second half, think getting moved over to the left doesn’t help him though. Randall 5 – Didn’t really get involved in the game, we used Nemane most of the first half for our wide play. O’Brien 7.5 – I actually thought he had one of his best games, definitely tired towards the end but he did a lot of running, he always tracked his man and made himself available for a pass. Bostock 7 – Great to have him back, positional play and general passing was good. Could tell he hadn’t played for a while though, looked a little sluggish at times. Crowley 8 – My MoTM, great goal, his passing in the final third was a joy at times and he’s just so good on the ball, I know he’s going to take the ball, fake to go one way and then turn but he always fools the opposition! McGoldrick 8 – A close second, rarely wasted a pass, movement was great in the first half caused Bradford real problems. Langstaff 8 – Seems harsh cos he did score two but I guess we expect him too now! That continuing press from him through out the game was impressive too. Subs Rawlinson 7 – Helped sure us a bit at the back, looked focused and I was impressed with his first touches where he received the ball and skimmed past a Bradford attacker! Gosling 4 – Can tell he’s not played for a while, really needed to be quicker when releasing the ball. Pretty sure he got disposed and then Bradford charged forward and scored. Austin 5.5 - Lively and can't fault the effort but that deeper role does not play to his strengths. Adebayo 5.5 – Some good runs and moments but nothing that really worried Bradford. Morias 6 – I think he gets a rough deal, only had about 15 mins, had a couple of chances but was generally tidy on the ball.

Yeah, he's had to be patient but since he's had a run in the team he's done very well. And that goal against Gillingham will definitely given him a massive confidence boost. He'll be 22 by the end of this season and effectively graduate from Stoke's U21 team, I guess they'll have to make a decision on whether or not they see him as part of their first team. So potentially there could be a chance to sign him permanently. I know he's only a 6 month loan at the moment but I'd be happy to extend that to the end of the season.

If it's £20 for a seat, by my logic standing will be half the price surely? Sounds good to me! I'm sure it'll get a lot of interest, and I'd expect most of it to be for it. It's all done properly now like lots in this thread have commented on. And if it adds even more to the atmosphere it's got to be a big plus.

Well, it was entertaining, you can’t argue you don’t get your money’s worth at Meadow Lane this season! I’ll get the second half out the way first because I don’t want to be too negative after a win, I’d have taken a 4-2 before kick off 100%! Bradford had nothing to lose at 4-0 and came out with no pressure and a desire to put right their awful first half performance. But we didn’t react to it. We needed to be quicker on the ball and take fewer touches given Bradford were actually being pro-active and pressing us. We did such a terrific job first half it was a shame we struggled to adapt to the opposition’s changes in the second. Lessons to be learnt there. And one other minor gripe is the silly yellow cards we’re picking up, I think Baldwin will miss the next game now after needlessly kicking the ball away with 2 minutes to go and Adebayo got his custom yellow too. He must have the best yellow to minutes ratio in the league… On the positive side that first half was probably the best I’ve seen this season. Bradford did what any team should do if they want a tough time against us and that’s sit back and just let us have the ball under no pressure. Some really great goals and Crowley was just so on it, his goal with the little drag back was fantastic. And given our mini injury crisis it was great to see Bostock, Randall, Morias, Brindley and Cameron all back. Gosling definitely looks like someone who hasn’t played for a while, but given time hopefully he’ll get up to speed. Back into the autos as well, all in all a pretty good day.

As the obvious two have be taken I can only think of Regan Griffiths (and it was struggle remembering him!)

I agree with @DangerousSausage, I noticed he was in the odds for their next manager but at this lower level they don’t really mean much. We've no idea if the Oxford hierarchy are interested or not, I’m sure lots of clubs have tracked Luke’s time with us, so I wouldn't be that surprised. But right now he’s ours and he signed a new contract at the start of this year so I'm quietly confident he'll be here for some time.

Wow, there’s a player I didn’t expect us to sign. It’s odd he wasn’t already with a club after his release from Watford given he’s played at such a high level all his career. I’m amazed he wasn't signed by another Championship or top League 1 club. No doubting his quality, technically he’ll be absolutely fine. It’s just his fitness really and attitude to commit to the cause, this is where his career has led him and he’s got to not think he’s better than this level. Given he’s earned millions he doesn’t really need the money, so I’m optimistic that he’s here for the right reasons. He'd have been on 5-figure weekly wages at Watford, he won't be on anywhere near that here, but I wonder if the deal is so short is because it’s all we can afford!

Yeah, I'm relatively happy with that. I know it was only a pre-season game but we did well against them at their place. Even though they lost Colchester scored 2 against them, I'd say we are more than capable of doing the same (scoring, not losing!) If the team performs well there's no reason we can't provide a minor upset and get through to the third round.

Was that LW first win in a cup?! We got knocked out of the FA cup last season by Coalville, seem to remember losing very early in the trophy too. This season we’ve lost all prior cup games so it’s great to finally get a win! It was entertaining to listen to, definitely weren’t at our best but our ability to outscore the opposition got us through! And we scored from a short corner! I’d say it was good to give some fringe players a run out but right now that team is pretty much all we’ve got! The injury situation is really frustrating, no idea what’s happened to the likes of Morias and Randall, feels like they’re permanently injured. We couldn’t even fill the bench today and two of the five were academy players. Getting to January feels like it could be a mammoth struggle, we really need to avoid any more injuries, surely we’ve suffered enough now. Looking forward to the draw tomorrow, 2:30pm if anyone wants to watch it live. I’d like a home draw that gives us a chance of getting to the third round or failing that a game against a top L1 team (just for the potential of it being televised for that extra money).

Confirmed now. Not got much luck with injuries this season... ????

Mustapha Dumbuya joined us from Crawley.

I’ll be gutted if he’s out for the season. Nothing mentioned in the press conference for the weekend so if he’s not in the squad this weekend that’ll pretty much confirm it, the only mystery would be the severity of the injury. Sounds like we'll have bit of makeshift midfield this weekend then. Hopefully Bostock is back for Crewe because his and Palmer’s ability to retain the ball is something we’ll miss hugely. I don’t think anyone else in the squad can do what they do.

There wasn’t much in it, that deflection was unlucky and changed the game but that’s football. It just didn’t quite click for us in the final third, we missed our chances and the longer it stayed at 0-0 the more confident Wrexham got. No one really had a bad game, I think Wrexham’s man of the match was their keeper which says a lot. I knew he was on loan, didn’t realise he came from Arsenal having just played a season in the Austrian 1st Division! They’ve certainly got a bit of pulling power. I just think right now our injuries have hampered us. We needed to be able to bring on a player or two who could change the game, but right now we don't have it. I’m not too down after that, still would’ve been nice to win/draw but performance wise it was much better than Mansfield.

I’d guess she (or her team) had been interviewed and gave an answer like “I’m looking to invest in Knox County”. Meaning she's interested in buying property there. Some doddery old British journalist wasn’t really listening and thought she said Notts County.

Yeah, tough one this, but I seem to remember John Sheridan had a short spell as manager at Newport.

I guess they would likely form part of a consortium like they did with Viborg, maybe involved more for the stats/analysis they can offer. Be surprised if they bought them outright. However if they got involved with another club that would mean less time spent at Notts. Would it impact us though? From what I gather they very much put people in place and let them get on with the job. The new CEO, Joe Palmer will be responsible for the day to day running like Jason Tuner was.

Yep a very good night for us. Jones sounded like he gave their full back a night to forget, Macca unlucky not to get a hat-trick and chances for Morias too. But most importantly to me we got a clean sheet (maybe aided by the poor performance of Newport) but a good confidence boost for the defence nonetheless. Sets us up nicely for Wrexham.

So he's off to the National League North and what a great start! Rushall won 5-0 he came off the bench and scored! Should be a good move for him, if he does well there maybe a move to a National League club will be his next loan.

At the start of the season I was quietly confident we’d have a good season, I didn’t think we’d start as well as we have done though. A lot of opinions have been voiced about our defence, there’s definitely room for improvement but I still think a lot of that comes down to how we set out to play. I think regardless of individuals we will always look a bit susceptible at the back because we load our team with attacking players and push everyone forward leaving space in behind. This season the quality of opposition has also improved, our defenders have pretty much stayed the same. It was always going to be more challenging. But right now our attacking prowess, one of the reasons we are very enjoyable to watch, is seeing us through. If you look at the stats we are actually very efficient in attack; given the high number of goals we’ve scored we haven’t actually had that many shots. I think in only a few games this season we’ve had more shots than the opposition; those were Grimsby, Tranmere Salford & Colchester (we lost that one!) – I know stats can tell their own stories, dangerous shots would be more interesting and better stat (but I’m not going to re-watch every game to compile that). Quite a few teams we’ve played have been happy to shoot from distance but we don’t tend to just hit and hope, be it in crossing and shooting, we’re much more likely to be patient to try and create a genuinely good goals scoring chance. I agree with Luke Williams that we haven’t hit our peak performance yet, probably Salford away and Swindon at home were stand-outs, overall I’m very pleased with our form!

Yep, home draw is always a bonus. I a way I'm glad it's not a team like Kettering or Tamworth, your proper non-league lower than even National League level. Still have horrible memories of losing to Hornchurch and Salford.

Stuart Nelson, joined them after leaving us. Dropped back into League 2 but I think he got promoted with them.

They won’t have a new manager before playing us so that’s a positive. It’s not always the case that a new manager guarantees a better result, but I always think players will usually try that bit harder to impress a new boss. They’re aren’t very good at scoring and recently starting conceding, probably because they’re trying to rectify their goal troubles and have pushed a few more forward leaving them more vulnerable at the back – I hope that’s the case anyway! We always seem to react well after a big defeat, the team will want to get straight back on track. I seem to remember after the Dorking loss we played York (who were no pushovers) we ran like 1/3 more than usual (maybe I made that figure up) but we definitely ran more than normal! I think the conversation afterwards was about how out-working the opponent always gives you a better chance of getting a good result. Same sort of reaction would be fab. Yeah I’m really hoping Bostock is fit too, guess we'll know when the pre-match press conference is out. Cameron should be back, I’m sure Luke said they found out he was unavailable on the morning. Suggests to me he was ill, It would be really unlucky/freakish to pick up an injury at home!

I thought Mansfield really did a job on us. Yes we started well and scored but after that we couldn’t get the ball into midfield or our wingbacks so the defence passed it around a bit, got pressed and then passed it back to Slocombe to kick long. We then didn’t pick up enough second balls and just looked a bit passive/all over the place. It was worrying how thread bare the squad was. Scott and Bajrami would’ve been good options for us that game it’s a real shame they are missing. And then to have Cameron, Chicksen, Randall (did we accidently forget to register him to play) and Jones all out. That meant the bench was weak, Morias was our only attacking option but the fact only O’Brien and Adebayo got on says a lot. Might as well send Macari and Tipton back as it feels like they’re just here to make up numbers at the mo. That result and peformance was very unexpected. Don’t get me wrong the overall picture is still very good, but the goals against is becoming a tad worrying now.

Like you say I've no idea what attacking a site like this achieves, no gain for anyone really. It's great that's it's back up though, I've been boring my family and friends with all my Notts thoughts and opinions this past week!