menzinho

If ever a game epitomises our season, it was that. First half was the tale of the of every first half when a team pressures us and pins us in, we just cannot combat it. No doubting the effort in the second half, it was better and we were positive but it just wasn’t too be. Another case of waiting for that moment of magic from an individual, a goal from out-of-nowhere to spark us into life. And then Cal. Pretty much the one-man we’ve pinned this season’s success on… It’s just not going to be for him is it? IB was quite literally cursing his luck when the camera’s zoomed in on him. I’m fearing the worst as there’s clearly something still not quite right there. I don’t and really didn’t feel too down after that result, we were beaten by a better team. I was hopeful we could win and I’d have absolutely taken a draw beforehand. For me that cements that play-offs will be the best we get and even then I think us going up will be reliant on a moment of magic.

I thought this too but he hasn’t actually played for them for a month now, and he’s not injured so I’d be surprised if he played. In terms of the set-up, they play 3-5-2, so do we continue and match them up or does Ian Burchnall think we’ll have more luck with a different formation? I think I’d stick, only change would be Wootton for Sam. And maybe even have Rodrigues in instead of Griffiths. We’re good away from home and they’re unbeaten in their last 11 home games, you’d think it would be quite tight which would suit us at the moment. We'd get to bring on Roberts and Knight for the last 30 mins, the last thing Hartlepool defenders want! I think they'll be the ones that help us secure a positive result here.

Big win, needed to keep that faint hope of top alive (I haven’t given up hope yet), but more importantly keeping in touch with that 2nd/3rd spot. I was worried after the first 10, we could’ve easily been 2-0 down. Our slow starts have cost us games this season and if not for Slocombe that could’ve been another one. Luckily Wrexham sort of gave up after 20. Still didn’t create a lot, we looked comfortable but their keeper didn’t really have a lot to do. Thought Chicksen did well (after a shaky start) and agree with @Super_Danny_Allsopp about Griffiths and Knight. Still confused as to why Wootton was sent off, just a 50-50 ball and then play was restarted with a drop-ball. Did he say something? Pfft, anyway he needs a break he’s been carrying the attack all season. Hopefully that’s the end of the set-backs for Roberts, a massive boost for us and Burchnall – he really will make the run in easier. Part one of Easter done, got to back that up another good result at Woking now.

That was painful to watch. Lets get that penalty decision out the way first cos it was an absolute shocker. Ellis’ arm just brushed against his back, and he goes over like an Olympic diver. Woeful decision from the ref. We still had 88 mins to get something out of the game, so I wasn’t worried… (But I should’ve been!) I know Aldershot had no intention of having the ball but was the whole idea of passing between Reeves and the defenders an attempt to put them to sleep or something? That was like watching Notts years ago under Ian McParland pass it round the back before one of the CB’s finally decides to just pump it long... Second half wasn’t much better, except Aldershot actually realised if they have a bit of the ball they could easily make it 2-0. Thought we’d get some sort of reaction after Saturday but that was just as bad if not worse.

The worst possible start for Burchnall. And the worst possible way to lose that (apart from getting thumped like 5-0). Pfft… 3 goals against a team levels below should’ve been more than enough. We were so open at times and it felt like Hornchurch were only one good ball away from being in. The fact we’ve struggled of late passing out from the back I thought we’d mix it up a bit more, especially as Wootton looked good in the air today and there’s been very little time to rectify it on the training ground. So poor from us though, half of that Hornchurch team didn’t look fit (kindest way of putting it!). Fair play to them. Would have been interesting what some fans would’ve made of Ardley starting Reeves and Doyle in CM again and then bringing off Rodrigues for O’Brien early on. Also thought Kean shouting to put their player off taking his pen was petty and unnecessary, no fans I know but they didn’t do it when Kyle stepped up first. Positives from today. Sutton drew with Halifax... ????

Match postponed! Due to a covid case in the Aldershot team, even though it's just one team member they all have to isolate for 10 days... League rules. Not good for us, we already have a packed schedule so this game will have to be crammed in somewhere - you'd think the league might consider extending the season by a week or 2 considering everyone has been hit with more postponements than usual this season.

I think Kelly-Evans would be my last choice. Absolutely fearless, but I’d be shooting from the halfway line if I saw him in goal! I know what you mean, first thought is to get someone bigger there but the likes of Rawlinson and Wootton are too influential. Considering the formation we switched too Doyle ended up being the ideal choice.

I’ve only ever seen Notts play as high as League 1 so for me I genuinely think that is the most impressive performance I’ve seen. When Slocombe got sent off I would’ve absolutely taken a 1-1 there and then. Probably wouldn’t even been that gutted if we’d lost 2-1 but to win that like we did is… Wow. Glad Doyle pulled rank and got that kit off Ruben otherwise we wouldn’t have seen his goal as it was an absolute beauty. I can’t fault anyone’s performance, about 70 mins in I thought “yep we’re actually going to win this”, they were all so dominant. And so much for our defensive manager who kept 2 strikers on when we went down to 10. The hardest decision he’ll have to make for Wrexham will be Pilling or Doyle in goal? ???????? Glad I’m not a Dagenham fan…

Points wise we can’t complain as that’s 7 points from 9 in 7 days. However performance wise, and I mean in an attacking sense I’m a bit worried. We won that through a flukey goal, yes we dominated possession but chance wise again we didn’t create a lot…

It was a strange game, Ardley said he thought it would be more open. Solihull did have a lot of players behind the ball but that’s no excuse for being as poor as we were particularly in the first half. At the moment we’re relying on moments of magic to win us games, which hardly ideal! I get the frustrations, early on in the season we were scoring but conceding - now we’ve fixed the conceding part we need to rediscover that scoring part again! I still find it odd that we’re only 16 games into the season… And I think I can look at that as a positive. Under Ardley the team seems to need a run of games to get going, we had our best spell last year over the Christmas/NY period we continued that into the second half of the season but sadly had to stop playing just when we’d won 5/5! I’m hopeful we can replicate that type of form again.

Solihull play at bit like us by all accounts, so it could be a case of two teams cancelling each other out – I’m not expecting a goal fest especially considering our lack of goals at the moment. Sounds like Brindley won’t be available, so D-KE to RB and Miller in at LB? I'd be surprised if Chicksen started. And It’ll be interesting to see if Reeves and Doyle continue to play as the CMs. I’m still not sure which formation suits us best this season. Assuming we want to play with Rodrigues the 4-2-3-1 probably just edges it for me… Head says another 0-0 but I hope we can win it.

Would’ve been a great statement if Notts could have won that, I feel a bit disappointed we didn’t. Couldn’t fault the work rate/battling and again, defensively very solid. Another clean sheet but is it coming at the expense of our attacking play? I feel like our attacking play is too predictable now, I don’t mind us cutting inside but it’s almost every attack. Yesterday it forced Enzio to shoot with his left foot, he bangs them in on his right! Play him on the other wing or just switch it up a bit more - he was only up against a now 35 y/o Dean Moxey, no disrespect but Enzio should've been able to cause him constant problems one on one. When we’re in the final third, still, almost every ball is into feet we never want to play a ball in behind – mainly because no-one makes the runs but the one time we did Effiong caused a big problem. He won a good free-kick another yard in and he would’ve got a pen. I’m slightly worried we rely too much on Roberts in an attacking sense, since his injury in the league we’ve scored 5 goals in 7 games… Is that just a coincidence? I’m not so sure…

Started too slow. First half was a bit of a non-event, we did actually get into plenty off good positions but we ended up crossing to just Wootton in the box a lot of times, desperately needed more bodies in there. Second half was much better, if we’d have played like we had in the second half all game I’d have backed us to win that. Linesmen were shocking, no way was Enzio off in the first half and Knowles looked level to me. The overall performance did deserve at least a draw if I’m being honest – but ya know that’s football. Can’t argue with the defence at moment, but we aren’t going to keep clean sheets every game – just conceding the one goal isn’t bad. However since we scored 3 against Wealdstone, we’ve only scored 2 goals in the last 5 league games…

Yeah, not great news for us at all especially as it’s a double header of games so that’s another set of games to catch up on. So we’ve played 13 games in 3 months, that’s basically 4 games a month, and we’ve got 31 games (+ FA vase) left to play. If we keep averaging 4 games a month it’ll take us 7 months to complete the season! Lots of teams in the same position and some have even played fewer than us too, Dover have only played 9 games! And now there’s a more contagious strain of Covid-19, I agree @DangerousSausage that a PPG finish is looming again….

Yeah maybe, @Piethagoram I think he was our last signing but he’s played his entire career in L1, and Bolton fans liked and rated him. He’s two levels lower now; he should be more than solid enough for us. I like DKE but it's got to be so much easier for a natural left-footer in that position. I’m not writing Chicksen off just yet, I need to see more of him – but yeah, he hasn’t exactly had a standout performance so far...

When I first saw the team, I was surprised that Chicksen couldn’t get in at LB ahead of our two RBs! They and the rest of the team didn’t start very well and the passing and touch was so bad if you’d have told me they’d been out drinking heavily the night before I would’ve believed you. Second half we did go more direct and improved slightly but Woking pressed well and had a lot of players behind the ball restricting that space. Enzio will have felt a little hard done by not getting a start but he effectively got us that goal today, great strength and run before squaring it Wootton. Wootton didn't have his best game but he kept working hard for the team. Think that’ll be him off pens though! 2 in 2 he’s missed and we can’t afford to mess up a gift like a pen especially at a times when we desperately need a goal... Ok we weren’t the usual fluid team we’ve seen recently but I guess the biggest positive to take from the last couple of games and today is how much more assured our defence is looking now. We’re solid again, and 3 clean sheets in a row proves it!

???? OMG. What did I just watch?!? Unbelievable... Speechless. Deary me Chesterfield. Absolute car-crash of a team.

Chesterfield have sacked their manager, John Pemberton, let’s hope this doesn’t spark a performance from them. They are poor, like really poor - I had a look on their forum and from about 20 predictions only 1 has predicted a win! ???? That said I’m not feeling confident going into this one. ???? As for the team. I like a 4-3-3 but if feels like we’re playing players slightly out of position but then part of me thinks they’re professional footballers so they should be able to adapt. Could Rodrigues drop into a 3-man midfield? It needs something more too it. Maybe we just need to go back to a 2! I’d like to see Wolfe, some Barnsley fans seemed to think he wasn’t far off getting in their team. I’d argue this game could be ideal for Turner, just stick to Denton as Chesterfield’s game pretty much revolves around them hitting it long to him – stop him and you stop them. (And there’s no worries about pace with Denton!) Maybe he can redeem himself here. However with Pemberton gone they might try something else… I think there will be goals in this game. 2-2. Roberts and Wootton to score. It should be an easy win, but I just can’t see it the way we are playing at the mo. (Obvs hope I’m wrong and we stroll to another 3-0).

Yes Turner’s mistake was a shocker (another defensive error costing us points) but the performance on the whole again was poor and we didn’t deserve the win. We didn’t create much and we’ve gone from having one of the most solid defences to one that’s a bit all over the place with more than one mistake in them. We were lucky Halifax’s crossing and final ball was poor, is that why we just let them do it over and over again? I’m getting also getting worried about this Doyle-Reeves-O’Brien trio, there’s no real competition for these places. But Reeves looks to be a step above the other two… Enzio is just not on it at all. Wootton struggled. The only real positive was that Sam scored. I know I said a draw wouldn't be the worst result, but I'm feeling pretty deflated after that.

Yeah. Given Thomas was reported to be ill, I assume we'll see him at some point tonight. I get it when he first came in he hadn’t played for a while but he’s had months of training with the team now. Surely he’s ready now?! He’s been getting gradually better in each appearance he’s had… ???????? Okay, he had a half-decent chance against Aldershot that that he fluffed, but he got himself into a scoring position. Tonight I’m hoping he’ll finish one off.

Halifax are in a similar situation to us in that they’ve had a stop start season. I can’t see it being a great game, I think both sides will be rusty but we should have enough about us to get a win. Pass it out from the back, that’s fine but please don’t mess around with it! We really can’t afford anymore stupid mistakes that cost us the game. A draw wouldn’t be disastrous but we really could do with a win. I'll also go 1-0 Notts, Sam to score. Yes, I going all out here. Elisha Sam, off the bench to score the winner!

Yeah, it was a pretty bad performance by all accounts. I didn't watch it but the commentary about the players constantly slipping over was about as entertaining as it got! Roberts and Rawlinson missing isn't helpful but the point of a squad is that we should be able to perform without them. Too many players had bad games. Wootton wasn't on it like he has been and Lacey had a uncharacteristic shocker. I worry without Roberts and Enzio's loss of form we've lost what was quite an integral part of why we were so successful last season, we need to be able to find ways of getting results without them. There's that old saying that champions can play badly and still get results, seems we've got that first bit nailed - just need to work on the second bit.

Yeah it is surprisingly quiet, I guess there’s no point testing players too early on. I think Friday is the latest they can do it. Fingers crossed we have no more cases. I’m pretty sure there’s no chance any that tested positive last week will be available. I just hope they’re all doing okay, I know footballers are young and fit, I’m sure they’ll be fine but every individual is different. I hope they aren’t affected for too long after either, hearing all this stuff about long covid too now is grim. As for the remains of the team (assuming everyone else is alright) it’s likely we’ll be without a RB again. I'm not sold on McCrory playing there, think I'd rather play Rawlinson there and bring Turner into the side. Sam needs to be thrown in, he needs match fitness and a chance show us what he can do. Pilling looked decent in the pre-season games, wouldn’t be opposed to giving him a game. I wouldn’t make too many changes, with the reduced income it would be helpful to get through a couple of rounds. As for the score, I think we will have worked on set-pieces and defending this week (again assuming we had a squad to train!). 2-0 Notts, Sam and Reeves to score.

Barratt should’ve been sent off, but that said it’s still annoying how we were so poor defending set-pieces. It’s the sloppiness against Barnet again, but this time it’s actually cost us. I agree we with everyone that we still had the players capable of getting a result, the bench was very weak in terms of attacking options but we still scored 2 goals and should’ve at least been able to get a draw. Disappointing result aside, I think the issue of testing and postponing of games could become an issue now. 6 games off today (throughout the national league structure) due to infections. We are incredibly lucky we’ve got owners able to fund rounds of testing, other clubs aren’t so lucky. Are Sutton getting a round of testing? I Imagine it’s likely one of their players could have covid-19. Surely they can’t play their game until they know they’re all unaffected… If clubs like Sutton have to wait until players show symptoms it could well be to late, players could play and pass the virus on. Getting Covid-19 test results after games means it won’t stop the spread. It’s just going to slowly and continuously disrupt the season if nothing is done but I know clubs can’t afford the testing. A real catch-22 scenario…

I don’t think the squad will go into this one over-confident because Ardley won’t let that happen, he'll make sure we think of our defensive duties as much as our attacking ones. In terms of the team, not heard back about the Covid testing so I assume everyone’s in the clear there. I’d stick with the 4-3-3, maybe have Rodrigues as part of the midfield 3 with Thomas or Enzio up with Wootton and Roberts. McCrory back in at LB for me, not a dig at DKE but it’s just so much easier for a natural left-footer. I don’t think it’ll be as easy as everyone thinks, just a hunch I can’t see a thrashing. I still think we’ll control the game, but I can see Maidenhead frustrating us. 2-0, but the second goal will come late(ish) in the second half. Wootton to keep up his scoring run, Thomas with the other.