menzinho

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!

I like the changes, sometimes with all the different sub-forums in the forums you can lose track of some of the posts so I'm all for bit of streamlining!

All the media and interviews coming from Notts this week has been very positive, I think (hoping) the players will want to prove a point that it doesn’t matter who’s in charge, they are good enough to do well at this level. Jim’s got a slightly tougher job picking the team, after the short break we should have more players available, surely we can’t have picked up anymore injuries! The real issue for Jim is can he justify picking himself ???? No idea if the new keeper will be straight in, I guess Tom Weal will guide him there. I think the experienced pros are more likely to get the nod, maybe even Rawlinson back in for this game? And I’m hoping to see Robertson at some stage too. David Artell hasn’t really changed Grimsby’s form too much, only achieving 2 wins from his first 8 games. They did just get drubbed 6-1 by Walsall at home in their last game, but like us they’ve had an extended break too so they’ll have worked on improving things and making sure that doesn't happen again. I’m slightly more nervous about this game as we are in a slightly unknown/in-lingo period, a win would obviously be great but I’d be more than happy with a solid performance and point! (Cue drab 0-0 now LW has gone).

Yeah it's interesting the brothers clearly don't just look at win percentage, neither IB or LW had particularly great records before coming to us. I'm not too fused if the new guy is in a similar situation. The more I think about it the more I can see it being someone like Brian Barry-Murphy, in that he had 109 games in charge of a Rochdale but his record on paper doesn't look that great. However look at where Rochdale are now, they've just bombed since he left so it was clearly not a well run club he was managing at. This is the kind of thing the Bros will look into and they'll find out how he really did there. There's clearly much more to it than just win %. But it is an odd thing that some people do get hung up on. I'd imagine a lot of other owners do and wouldn't have thought much had Luke Williams applied at their club. Now they all know it was a massive missed opportunity as he was available for a couple of months before we got him! ????

Hmm, not sure this is the answer to the current GK scenario. The positive is that he played the whole season for Aldershot last season but he’s only played 7 league games out of 27 for Crawley this season. If he was really good surely, he’d have started all/most of them. We scored 6 goals past him in two games and in one of them he was caught in the middle of nowhere for Didzy’s goal... So yeah, maybe he'll do well for us, I'll judge him on our time with us.

Some other names that have featured with the betting sites that haven't been mentioned on here yet are: Ruaidhri Higgins - Current Derry City manager. Scot Lindsey - Current Crawley manager. Daniel Stendel - Former Barnsley manager and current Hannover 96 reserve team manager. Cameron Toshack - Son of John, last job was a first team coach at Leeds. And interestingly he has spent a lot of time coaching at Swansea. Matt Gill - Former player (I don't really remember him, so he clearly wasn't great) current Southampton Assistant Coach. And he took over LW role when he left Swansea for us...

I feel like the loss of LW has the potential to disrupt us a bit. I think the quicker we get a new head coach in the better. Happy for Jim to take the reigns for the meantime but I don't really expect too much from him, I'm hoping he can lead us to victory in the short-term, but it's a big job for someone to take on with limited experience and at the start of their coaching career. I still think we can finish in play-offs though. The new head coach will have a real tough start, could potentially be in for Stockport and then it's Barrow and Mansfield. In Feb we've got Wrexham and Bradford away as well as facing Crewe and Wimbledon! Looks like we'll get all the tough games out the way and should have an easier run in.

I’d be worried if it was a coach who’s come straight from an academy. It would be a massive risk, academy football isn't the same as men's competitive football. Simon Rusk was the next big thing but he didn’t work out at Stockport. And this season David Horseman at FGR really struggled. Most coaches have to start there I get that but I’d hope we’d look for someone who’s progressed into the men’s game at some point, be that as a head coach or assistant coach.