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Very frustrating and disappointing, you don’t mind losing to a good team but Gillingham didn’t really put us any much pressure for the majority of the game. We didn’t play particularly well either but to give them 2 goals from their only 2 attempts in the first half is so bad. @Chris pretty much covers the whole game and my thoughts too so thanks for saving me the time to type them all out! Just in terms of the wider picture I think given the record-breaking season we previously had it’s easy to get carried away and think we can replicate that in the league above the truth is no-one has ever had back-to-back promotions in years, maybe even never (I’ve not checked that far back). But we know the main problems are goals against, particularly conceding on the counter and balls into our box and there’s a real lack of depth to the squad too. Injuries haven’t helped either and Matty Palmer’s injury has pretty much confirmed to me he’s probably the most important player in our squad. Lots of teams have been trying to get promoted from this league for years, Mansfield have spent a good 7 seasons at it (and spent a lot of money) they might finally get promoted this season… There’s absolutely no reason for us to panic though and the Bros certainly won’t be. I think it would’ve been very harsh to gut the majority of the team last season without at least giving them a chance to prove themselves. This season will be a valuable learning curve for us.

I really hate this fixture… In the last 12 meetings, which covers our more recent meetings (since 2014) we’ve won 3, lost 7 and drawn 2 I think Mansfield will be missing Flint through injury and both Bowery and Quinn through suspensions. So that’s a little boost for us. They have also have been struggling at Field Mill recently (maybe cos the pitch resembles one) Doncaster and Sutton got a point there and Crewe beat them. Nonetheless I’m still not confident we’ll win, maybe the team will be desperate to get them back after we kind of fell apart second half against them. I’d like to see Warner in the team and I’d even start with Adebayo-Rowling at RWB for a bit more defensive nous. It is harsh on Nemane given he’s scored 5 in 5 at the minute but we could always bring him on if we needed more attacking flair. I hope we at least put in a good performance, I’m not going so it’ll just be the radio for me, at least I can just switch it off if it all goes horribly wrong again!

I’ll admit it is hard to get excited about a player who’s only played 14 minutes of league football this season. And I find it strange a potential promotion rival would want to strengthen us, they either think he won’t or are just happy for another club to pay his wages. Interesting that he’s played under IB at Otsersunds and LW at Swindon, I wonder if they’ve given him a good reference… Like with any player I’ll judge him once he’s played for us and I hope he can prove my initial doubts wrong.

Given the rules on signing overseas players has been relaxed I wondered how long it would be until we found our next 'Rodrigues'. I think I speak for everyone on here though when I say I know absolutely nothing about him! So he’s a striker from Gambia… Weirdly not the first one, anyone remember Demba-Nyren? (It’ll be buried memory and for good reason). I guess he can’t be as bad as he was…

Yeah, agree with a lot that's been said. Stuart Maynard has come into to a stretch of tough games, and Barrow showed (albeit being over physical at times) why they should finish, at worst, in the play-offs come the end of the season. A point against a good team in this division is a decent result. We didn't start that well, in fact I think we were lucky we didn't go 1-0 down earlier than we did but. Wasn't so much down to the changes though, more individual errors again. I could see the changes in that Bostock and Robertson screened the defence at lot more, in tough games I think this is what we need. We controlled the game second half and Barrow just sat back almost happy with the point. I think the fact we didn't push like mad either showed we were too. I felt like we were relying heavily on Jones to create something for us, we needed to be able to be a threat on both flanks and through the middle a little bit more - not easy though, Barrow were very organised and didn't give us much space to exploit. I agree that we struggle with being able to change the games with subs too, we just seem to run out of steam a bit. We play so many attacking players (and good ones) I can see why coaches are reluctant to take them off. Only 2 of our 7 subs were attack minded yesterday and one of them in Randall has barely featured. Barrow were able to bring on Acquah, Worrall and Whitfield, I take that!

It's interesting since the injury of Palmer it seems like we've suddenly focused quite intensely on improving this area. Given FGR are in serious trouble I don't know why they'd want to let one of their supposedly better players go. Definitely won't please the fans (insert joke about them not having any here). I think a loan with an option to buy is a good idea though, especially with J'OB potentially on his last season we'd need a replacement in the summer. If it turns out McCann is great, I guess the fee will have already been agreed, so the deal would be pretty straight forward for us.

It does fall into that orange card category. I agree with Robbie though, if you want to stop someone from running then pull them back and take the yellow. He comes flying in and takes him out, the issue here is that Jodi could’ve been badly injured. I don’t think Barrow would’ve had any complaints had that been a red.

I kind of suspected the January window to be mostly loans, there's not been much movement in terms of permanent transfers so a lot of players aren't becoming available. And if you've got a half decent player clubs aren't going to want to let them go mid-way through the season! Are Man City going to take into account the minutes we gave to our last academy loanee player, Tipton, all of about 60 minutes in 6 months? Stockport seems like the obvious choice to me, no idea if the player gets a say but he wouldn't have to move and they can track his progress very easily with all the home games being so local. Who knows though, maybe our style of play will sway it again!

5-0 down at half-time. I can't believe what I'm watching, I think they've had 5 shots on target 5 and scored 5 goals. Luke has committed to his high line and high press but it's just not worked at all, the defence is all over the place and no-one's actually winning/cutting the ball out when they press. They've struggled to keep the ball too and they've left Bournemouth with so much space to play in behind and in the channels, it's a dream for quality Premier League players. I don't think we've ever had a half that was that bad under Luke. Not conceded in the 2nd half yet, but all the Bournemouth players are pretty much coasting now.

Yeah, very interesting. Not sure I'm sold on the inverted wing-backs, was this more down to the limits he had at Wealdstone though? I think we need to keep the pitch as big possible, I don't really think our only wide players constantly coming inside and narrowing the space helps us. Who knows, maybe it'll play out differently or maybe we'll never see it! I didn't realise how impressive Wealdstone's defence is; 6th best in terms of goals conceded - Just as long as you ignore the fact they're 19th for goals scored! But here he's got a very different set of attacking players, some are probably the best in the league so it would be very hard to effectively stop us being a threat going forward. I think we'll have to sacrifice our goal threat a bit in order to shore up the defence, but if turns out we score fewer goals but start to concede considerably less no-one will be moaning.

Confirmed now. I’m pretty pleased with this one to be honest. I’ll stick my neck out here and say he’ll be considerably better than Tipton. He’s part of the Norwich first team squad, Tipton was very much an academy player. This is very encouraging; “Standing at 6ft 4’, Jaden brings tremendous pace and power to our back line and, crucially, he has strong defensive instincts in terms of his positioning, anticipation and willingness to put his body on the line. Beyond that, he’s excellent on the ball and will be able to contribute a lot for us in build-up phases.” The pace and power attributes are desperately needed in defence so on paper he sounds perfect. Even if he’s having a bad game he’ll still be quick and big… Tipton was just big

I think we'd have been fine had the game been on, our injury list seems to be stuck in a bit of permanent state with personal at the moment so I think bar getting some defenders in we're about as strong as we can be. I've seen a few Stockport fans say they don't mind it being off either as they have a few key players currently injured. I agree it gives the new coaching team a bit of time to find out about their new players before the Barrow game though.

Jayden Richardson who we had on loan from Forest is currently there at the moment.

Stockport were very good defensively when we played them a few weeks ago, we largely dominated the ball but struggled to break them down. On the plus side Stockport didn't really threaten us that much either, they scored from a corner and a penalty. I suspect Jim O'Brien and co will guide Stuart Maynard on the starting 11, I think adding more defensive minded players would be a good thing but I'm doubtful it'll happen. Some players will look at this game as a chance to show the new coaching team what they can do and they'll know they'll have to step their game up if they want to come away win a too. We do need to be better off the ball but I don't think I'd put any money on us keeping a clean sheet for this game. As for the prediction, just roll a dice for each team and it won't be far off the final score!

Well this will get some fans moaning whatever the outcome... If it gets called off at 8:30am they’ll moan it should’ve been inspected later. If it were to be called off at 2pm after an inspection they’ll moan as to why it was left so late. I think letting people know in good time is the right thing to do, we’ve been on the end of some awful last minute cancellations in the NL, it’s unprofessional and unfair on travelling fans. It’s supposed to be warming up overnight so I’m hopeful but it’s been bloody freezing this week.

And unbelievably for us the bookies got it right! That has to be a first.

The more I’ve looked into Stuart’s time at Wealdstone the more encouraged I feel. In reality as they are part-time Wealdstone just staying in the NL is an achievement every season. They are competing against a lot of bigger and well backed full-time clubs. Based on their current structure they have definitely been over-achieving. I like how he spoke about how he backs himself and his tactics. These are Wealdstone’s results against the current NL top 3 sides this season: Drew 1-1 away at Bromley (currently 2nd), narrowly lost 3-2 away to Chesterfield (1st) and beat Barnet 3-2 (3rd). Pretty impressive. And although he’s young, he’s been coaching since 2012, starting in the Southern Prem. He was assistant when Hemel-Hempstead were promoted into the NL South. And again, when Wealdstone won the NL South. Eventually he became the main man at Wealdstone and he’s managed over 140 games. He’s clearly a good coach, to continuously improve Wealdstone whilst being part-time is very impressive, I hope he can continue to take us forward!

The rumours about Stuart Maynard seemed to have ramped up at the moment, some Wealdstone fans on social media are wishing him well

Perfect move for him that, if he gets in the team and does well there’s a real case for him to be competing as our No.1 next season. He just needs the games to prove himself, I really hope he can!

We do stack the team with attack minded players (and top quality ones too) so we should have one of the best attacks in the league! I'd argue to we go slightly OTT in terms of attacking though... In our recent starting 11’s we’ve played; Langstaff, McGoldrick, Crowley, Jones, Nemane and Austin. You could even argue Bostock is better going forward too, I love him but Bostock’s strength isn’t really defending, he’s a “playmaker” how many pens has he given away this season 3? 4? (We’ve given away far to many pens this season actually, that’s another topic in itself!) So 6/7 of the team are attackers… I think the team had more balance last season, we’re definitely missing Palmer and for the majority of last season we played Chicksen as the LWB. Now both JJ and Nemane are the regulars and they love to attack. Sometimes it's very easy for teams to expose the channels, it usually causes a CB or CM to be dragged out of position and that then exposes us even more! If we want to continue to play with a similar number of attackers in the team and not drop either JJ or Nemane, I think switching to something like a 4-1-4-1 is a good option. I know formations are lot more fluid these days, and players have different roles in and out of possession but I’d base it around the 4-1-4-1. Brindley – Baldwin – Cameron – Chicksen Bostock Nemane – Crowley – McGoldrick – Jones Langstaff Just my thoughts, I’m sure the current 3-4-2-1/3-2-4-1 is adaptable to give us more defensive cover but you’d probably have to change the personal and style more as it is a very attacking formation.

POTS so far: Dan Crowley. Best performance: Morecambe. Best opposition: Mansfield. Worst opposition: I'll go with Doncaster too, but Bradford get the honourable mention though for worst 45 mins. Best away day: Harrogate (it wasn't but I've got no other choice here!) Who I'd appoint: I said Stephen Bradley in the new manager topic so I'll stick with him.

I think Stuart Maynard is someone we'll be looking, he's definitely done well at Wealdstone considering they are still part-time. I personally don't think it'll be him though, just my thoughts, I think being in L2 and pushing for L1 it puts us in an even stronger position since we last had to recruit a new head coach. I'd expect we'll have had some high calibre coaches applying and probably a few who'd we think aren't realistic. I'd love to see Chris and Alex's shortlist, all we've got to go on right now are the bookies odds and that isn't exactly a true reflection of who is in the running... At the moment the 'favourite' (I use that term in the loosest sense possible) is Morten Dahm Kjaergaard. (Who?) He is a real person and a football coach but I'm guessing his odds are courtesy of the guys who put their money on some obscure Faroe Islander last time!

Yeah, I'm not saying the defence are perfect but when you have just 3 natural defenders in the team what do you expect... It kind of seems obvious now. Even Man City play with 4 defenders and then they have Rodri who is very defensively switched on. We've stepped up a level in terms of opposition now so moving forward for the tough away games and home games we absolutely need to think about making tweaks to become more solid. One of the CM's to just focus on providing protection for the defenders and it might be painful to do but I'd even think about sacrificing one of Nemane or Jodi for a more defensive option in Tobi or Chicksen. It's about balance really and we are almost overloaded with attackers. I think just a few small changes could have a big impact. And as for the game itself; Painful, madness, speechless. I honestly was thinking at half-time Grimsby will score within the first 10 minutes of the re-start; 7 minutes it took them. I should’ve put some money on it. But to let them score just 1 minute after we claw it back to 3-3… I felt sick when we got it back to 4-4. And at 4-5 I thought at least we’ll get a point at worst now! BUT I WASN’T ACTAULLY BEING SERIOUS. Bloody hell Notts. And I know our defending is bad, but we basically scored the same goal 4 times, JJ crossing it to the back stick for a tap in! Someone got that Spiderman meme for the Notts and Grimsby ability to defend…

I'm also not suggesting we rush him back, and this is based on complete non-scientific fact, but I get the indication Matty Palmer is super-human. In terms of pure fitness, his body is able to recover quicker than most... I've seen the whole video and he's already moving very well and is able to put quite a bit of force onto his 'injured' right knee too.

I remember he did an interview, possibly the one with the two players from Boreham Wood, about why he scores so many goals. As well as having the striker’s instinct he talked about how his missed chances don’t faze him and that he just keeps telling himself to get into the position and he’ll score the next one. I don’t think he ever loses confidence because he backs himself and trusts his ability on the pitch so much. He’s a sublime striker, every club in this league and league 1 would snap your hand off to have him. I think at some point down the line we’ll make a lot of money from him, if we get promoted and he stays and continues banging the in goals in League 1 – that’ll probably be game over for us as the Championship clubs will be fighting over each other to get the highest bid in. But right now he’s well protected with his new contract so we can just kick back and enjoy watching him score for us!