menzinho

Well someone on Derby's forum says it's 90% done deal, which probably means in reality there's a 10% chance of it happening! Also someone on there wasn't too keen and called him "a stone overweight" ???? Don't go Ruben, they'll be no body shaming from any of us!

A proper damning indictment of our recruitment over previous years was missing out on him. I always thought he’d do well and I remember being really miffed when went to Morecambe after being released from Wolves. At the time they were in the same league as us and no doubt had a much smaller budget so we absolutely could’ve and should've got him! He was raw, a bit hit and miss at times but you could see his technical abilities, particularly his dribbling, when he was on it. Another type of player who just looks so natural when on the ball. Fair play to him though cos he’s probably going to play in the Championship next season.

I liked him and got why we signed him on loan, yes at times he got a bit bullied but he was only 18/19. 10 goals from 27 games was decent for his first proper spell in men’s football, especially when you consider he came off the bench a lot of the time. I think had he been “one of our own” a lot of fans would’ve been less harsh on him.

I’ve kept and eye on Kyle Wootton this season, I was reading the Stockport forum about him early on in the season and they weren’t very complimentary, so I stopped! Just watched the EFL highlights and saw him pop up with goals instead. He’s just won Player of the Year and Player’s Player of the Year as well as finishing top scorer for them. So a very good season for him, sad that he’s missing the play-offs with an injury but he could be playing in League 1 next season if Stockport beat Carlisle this weekend.

It's now the end of the week and so far only Jodi Jones has re-signed. He was obviously very keen! Everyone else still mulling it over I guess, although I am surprised we've not had a couple more players re-sign. Anyone worried we might be losing a few players?

You mean like this @Fan of Big Tone ? ???? I thought it did it automatically. I guess not, anyway I pressed the enter button after posting the link and that converted it into the embedded tweet. As for the actual fixtures, I'm never really too bothered by pre-season. But what's with us playing TBC 3 times, couldn't we have found someone else? PSV? QPR?

It's tough to predict right now because I've no idea who stays and who potentially comes in. That said, given our recent recruitment I'm sure we'll sign at least 3 or 4 top quality players. I'm looking at the likes of Barrow, Grimsby, Sutton and Stockport who have all finished well after their first season. Play-offs would be an amazing achievement, but I'd take a safe mid-table finish (with maybe a little FA Cup run) for our first season back!

I’d love him to stay, and I’ll be ecstatic. But I feel like he’s been such a good servant to the club I’d be happy for him if he moves on (and upwards) because he deserves it. Football’s such a short career and he’s too good to be playing lower league football. I look at players like Mason-Clarke (formerly of Barnet) doing well in league 1 and Ruben is as good as him (if not better). And with our current recruitment I feel a lot more confident we’ll sign a good replacement so we shouldn’t miss him, but if he does go the initial news will hurt.

Very pleased, he’s a versatile player and I think he’ll be used less in the wingback role next season. We’ve basically been able to play him as a winger in the wingback role because of how high up we play and how much we dominate. He rarely had to do any defending, but I can’t see it being that easy next season. I think he’ll play in the role behind the striker. Scott, Austin and Ruben (potentially) for those 2 positions behind the striker, that is some strength in depth there! He’ll have a full preseason with us too, I’d imagine after the time out he’s had next season should see him back to his best. Exciting times for us!

I agree that we don’t need another striker. Langstaff is obviously going to play there and he seems pretty resistant to the wear and tear injuries that other players suffer. We only play one striker too, I think a 4th would get very little game time. Morias struggled to get a look in and he's 1 of just 3 strikers! That said some people seem to think David McGouldrick wants to end his career with us, he is a fan after all so it’s not completely bonkers. Even though he’s 35 he scored 22 goals in League 1 last season, so he’s clearly still quality. What do we do if sign him though? Seems mad to bench 1 of him or Langstaff so then you’d have to change the system from last season, that was so effective, to accommodate two up top. There's a few players in NL that I think could step up, and be a part of our squad but I'm sure 50% of signings will be players I barely know like last season!

In a weird way I’ve enjoyed our spell in the 5th tier, watched some new teams, we won most weeks and like you say finished top 5 every season. Hardly a disastrous way to spend 4 years in my opinion but it’s certainly a great feeling to back in the EFL! I won’t miss the general shenanigans and incompetence of the NL Board, but we can look back and laugh now. Some highlights (lowlights) for me… Getting played off the park by Barrow(celona) and genuinely thinking we’ll be down here forever! James Rowe the Chesterfield manager telling an opposition player he’ll bite his f’ing nose off. Jim Parmenter telling us that their pitch at Dover was fine yet he had to record a video inside because it was raining so much… Gary Johnson dancing around when Torquay beat us in the “you stole our players” derby. (Funny how the last two are in NL South now, enjoy it lads, you could be there a while)

I think we definitely need some real competition for Slocombe (assuming he stays), in his four year spell here only Patterson was better. Is Mair the man to do this? Maybe, but the fact he's been here for months and only played due to Sam's injury makes me think maybe not. I like Ashmore from Boreham Wood, but you just know a key attribute for a keeper we sign will be their ability to play out from the back, something Boreham Wood don't really do. Another defender, someone who can challenge Baldwin as I think he is susceptible to the wear and tear injuries of high game time. No-one else in the squad can really do what he does. LWB, Chicksen also needs some competition. Jack Bridge? We made a bid for him in January. A midfielder, and another attacker too, ideally Jodi Jones! I like Sbarra too, but if Ruben stays and we have Austin I think that's a bit overkill for that position. I liked Akinola who Chesterfield have on loan, thought he did well against us but didn't start too many times for them.

Not too concerned to be honest. They’re in a bit of mess for one thing and this Alan Nixon is the only one reporting it so far. His bio, behind a paywall, say’s he’s “Creating football stories”. Maybe it is just semantics but to me creating suggests you make something up. More if buts and maybes rather than reporting actual facts… If it starts appearing on BBC Sport, NEP, Sky Sports, The Athletic etc then I’ll be a bit more concerned.

Don’t get me wrong I’m sure there are a lot of clubs in the EFL that are interested, how many could realistically afford him I don’t know, top end L1 clubs is probably the best starting point. I can’t imagine the club have a set fee depending on what division a club is in. They’ll have a price for him and if that is met, and the player wants to go there’s not much we can do. I don’t think he’ll move on though, we’ve got no pressure to sell him and Luke Williams talks a lot about this just being the start of a journey. He seems very happy and settled here too. And I just wonder if Championship clubs will wait to see how he fairs in league 2 before potentially bidding as I still think signing Langstaff would be a big risk for them given the highest level of football he’s played is step 5.

It might have been harsh but getting Mair on for the pens was fully justified. He just looks more imposing too, he's about 6ft 5" and it must make you think you're going to have to really put it in the corner to beat him! I was looking at the stats for penalty saves before the game, they’re on Transfermarkt, interesting thing about Slocombe his last penalty save was in August 2019, and that’s his only penalty he’s saved for us! He’s currently on a 16 game streak with 0 pens saved (that includes Dallas' penalty from yesterday).

GET IN! What a game, what a way to win. Amazing achievement from everyone at the club! WE ARE GOING UP!

Think I’ve just about recovered after a good nights sleep, just trying to recall the game and even though it was just yesterday it’s funny how in the heat of it all parts of it are just blurs! Going into to half-time I just thought, “no, not like this, we can’t end this season by being s’housed”. We started the game really well but not scoring dented our confidence and Boreham Wood’s grew. I love the guy but Ruben had a bit of a mare yesterday. I think his 3rd chance the one where Langstaff or Palmer, I genuinely can’t remember, lays it off to him I was on my feet ready to celebrate! And I thought his head noticeably dropped after the penalty save, he really didn’t do much in the game after that. Langstaff was quiet but he still had a couple of great chances, he didn’t get a lot of the ball but it’s hard to make runs in behind when you’re defending against a team that sits that deep. Hopefully Langstaff and Ruben are saving their goals for the game at Wembley! What a time for Aden to get his first two goals though, we saw the absolute best of him at times defending one on one against Ndlovu, luckily that lapse in concentration didn’t result in us going 3-1 down but his reaction and quickness got him out of trouble. Jodi Jones helped sway the game in our favour too, very good on the ball and the quality in his left foot was there for all to see. That moment when he scored at the end, that is going to take some beating as a best ever memory for me.

Oh. My. God. I cannot go through that again, that game has taken years off me! Just total relief at the end for me, madness, I totally thought we'd blown it at HT.

They've all contributed fantastically. I think Baldwin has been particularly key to the way we play but Langstaff, just wow.

Our away form was very superb this season. Surprised the Dagenham game missed the cut but I guess the problem is there are too many to choose from. I was swayed by volume of goals...

Tough one. I have three which I really like. The 2 free-kicks are quality, Castro's is probably more impressive but the pressure and occasion of the Wrexham game was huge. I've voted for my other favourite though...

My guess would be Phil Turner. I know it’ll be a player before my time, we’ve only recently had skilful midfielders and the ones before that never won any silverware! I don’t know if he won any cups for a previous club but he came out of retirement after 8 years to come on as a sub for Grantham Town. That is incredibly brief!

We're going into this season's play-offs in very different way to the last two. We’ve never really challenged for the title in those previous seasons, and it was always more a feeling of hope rather than expectation that we could win them. That’s not me saying I’m expecting us to win them (nothing's ever straight forward for us!) but I'm sure none of the other teams in the play-offs are looking forward to playing us. They’ve got to beat a team that’s amassed over 100 points this season if they want to go up. I’ll back us to beat anyone at home, especially with a bumper home attendance. And it's confirmed now it'll either be Barnet or Boreham Wood. Wembley is different though; it’s a big occasion and the pressure of the occasion can get to you. If we get there, we’ve just got to treat it like any other game give our best shot and que sera sera… When we finished third and Harrogate finished second, they beat us in the final and you can't say they didn't deserve it. Hoping for a similar scenario this year! (Second place team winning the final, not a repeat of us losing it!)

The legend in his home county and argumentative nature makes me think it could be Roy Carroll.

Is that a lesson learned there, if we do take Palmer off, make sure we have Bostock on the pitch so someone can play that deep midfield role. Credit to the team for not crumbling though and really pleased for Jim, his second hat-trick and this time there were fans to witness it! I didn’t follow any of the Wrexham game last night, I’d have been surprised had they not won. I’m not sure what more we could have done this season in terms of winning automatic promotion, we’re going to break the record for most points only second to Wrexham now. I just hope we can finish the job in the play-off’s because this team absolutely deserves to get promoted.