DangerousSausage

I doubt he'd have cost more than McGoldrick. He wasn't exactly in keeping with the model either, but we signed him when we had the chance. Wild speculation mode on: how does anyone know we weren't in for Palmer? Perhaps Jatta had a move lined up that was dependent on us signing Palmer? It's a bit of a coincidence that Jatta is suddenly available for selection again the moment Palmer signs elsewhere, but I'm probably reading too much into it.

This tickled me last weekend. Context: Eintracht Frankfurt had just beaten Werder Bremen 4-1, following which the goalkeepers exchanged shirts. Sky reporter: 4-1! Is that the opening day victory you were expecting? Marco Friedl: I'm a Werder Bremen player, in case you didn't know.

Why do you all leave it till the last minute? Anyway here are my predictions... Blackburn Rovers 2-1 Norwich City Watford 1-1 Southampton Barnsley 1-3 Huddersfield Town Wigan Athletic 0-2 Stockport County Barnet 2-0 Colchester United Bromley 1-0 Harrogate Town (joker) Hartlepool United 2-0 Boreham Wood Morecambe 1-2 Woking

Tragic news from the club today that our former manager has lost his fight with cancer. My thoughts are with his family and everyone who knew him. https://www.nottscountyfc.co.uk/news/2025/august/29/statement--steve-thompson/

Good luck to him! It'll be interesting to see how he does. There was talk about Adam Hinshelwood possibly getting the sack in the summer so he evidently didn't have much support from the board. They might as well have sacked him in the summer and had a clean break. York seem to have been throwing a lot of money at trying to get promotion and underachieved until he arrived.

Saturday is approaching, so we have some fixtures for you to predict. Kick-off is at 3pm and remember your joker! Blackburn Rovers v Norwich City Watford v Southampton Barnsley v Huddersfield Town Wigan Athletic v Stockport County Barnet v Colchester United Bromley v Harrogate Town Hartlepool United v Boreham Wood Morecambe v Woking

I don't think the club are in a position to dispel the rumours @Ash. I can't read AJ's mind, but in his shoes most of us would have our heads turned if a bigger club came in for us and offered to double our wages. But at the same time, he won't want to burn his bridges with Notts in case nothing happens. As for his agent, Notts have no control over what he says and does. He'll want Jatta to be sold for a fee as it would make him money. Ideally there would be a statement that he's going nowhere, but that would mean the player ruling out a big move and the club ruling out a big fee this window. Clearly either the player or the club (or both) wants the move to happen if the conditions are right.

A lot of these points have been discussed at length already. But in addition to the above, we can only spend a certain proportion of our turnover on players in L1 and L2. Investments like the padel courts and the Nest are therefore aimed at increasing our turnover so we can then spend more money on the team. How well we're spending on the squad is another debate entirely. We clearly haven't spent our budget yet, so hopefully we'll have one or two players through the door who genuinely strengthen us in the next week.

The results: Norwich City 1-2 Middlesbrough Sheffield United 0-1 Millwall Bolton Wanderers 1-1 Lincoln City Mansfield Town 4-1 Leyton Orient Fleetwood Town 1-1 Oldham Athletic Gillingham 1-0 Crewe Alexandra Halifax Town 1-2 Forest Green Rovers Sutton United 2-3 Scunthorpe United Six of us share first place this round! I've coloured our score in yellow to make it feel extra special. Overall, @magpiejue still leads the way, with @Robbie and @super_ram chasing. The next round is on Saturday, so I'll post the fixtures on Wednesday. Thanks for playing everyone and have a good week!

I don't know where you got that idea 😉 I certainly hope County can find a safer pair of hands soon.

It'll be an amazing atmosphere there today. It's a unique place to watch football too, so much better than a motorway junction. Also a bit jealous that Mansfield are playing there soon (apparently if you win a game in the League Cup, you get to play in another "round" - why did nobody explain this to us?). I wonder if @Dan is going?

Some interesting points there. Of course we've made progress - when they took over, we'd just been relegated to the National League, had a skeleton squad and were facing oblivion. The fact that we're back in the League and are looking towards L1 (although that might not be realistic this season) shows how far we have come. More context - before, we had no footballing identity, with managers rarely having a whole season on the job and pretty much doing their own thing when it came to recruitment, culminating in the disaster season. At that time many people were calling for us to adopt a proper philosophy and sign the players that fit into it. This doesn't necessarily mean signing the players the other clubs in our league are chasing. Of the five head coaches we've had, only one was sacked mid-season (the only one they didn't appoint themselves) and two left of their own accord to manage in a higher division. Whether MP is a good idea remains to be seen. This isn't the easiest route to success and in a way it reminds me of the season when Ardley was sacked - then too, many of our signings didn't come off and we had trouble fitting them into the team. It took most of the season for us to look like a cohesive unit. But one of those players was Ruben Rodgrigues, who really came good in the couple of seasons that followed. Of course, even if you've made progress, things can go into reverse with a couple of bad decisions. Not all his signings came off, but Richard Montague did a good job of building the squad and unearthed some real gems. The jury is out on his successor. And the willingness to sell Bass in particular indicates overconfidence in our ability to replace him. But they're problems we'd have been delighted to have just a few years ago.

Thanks for all your comments, I was limited to the radio yesterday (when I'm watching we tend to lose). I agree with the general point about matching physical teams - we need to stand up to physical sides when we're out of possession, but we shouldn't fall into the trap of playing the opposition's game. In the transfer market we specifically look for players who are good on the ball, so we shouldn't waste them playing head tennis. I'm glad there are signs of things coming together a little bit, we're creating chances and scoring goals. That's progress at least. As annoying as it is to drop points, if you'd offered me four points from these two games a week ago I'd have taken them and been grateful for it!

I'm expecting this to be more competitive than Wednesday. It'll be an opportunity for us to field an unchanged or nearly unchanged team too, which will hopefully help us bed the new players in a bit more.

There's one last thing I wanted to mention - Shrewsbury's number 11 was Anthony Scully and is the son of former Notts winger Tony Scully. He reminded me a lot of him too.

It'll be interesting to follow their progress, especially with the Notts link. All the players arriving at once reminds me of us after relegation, although we at least had an experienced manager to mould them into a team. Anything other than a relegation battle would be excellent for them this season.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, I'm surprised he lasted this long given the volatility of their owner. Going public about their relationship indicates to me that he knows his number's up.

E I E I E I O... Norwich City 2-1 Middlesbrough Sheffield United 0-2 Millwall Bolton Wanderers 1-1 Lincoln City Mansfield Town 2-1 Leyton Orient Fleetwood Town 2-0 Oldham Athletic (joker) Gillingham 2-0 Crewe Alexandra Halifax Town 0-1 Forest Green Rovers Sutton United 1-2 Scunthorpe United

After studying my spreadsheet, it seems that @theAnticlough and @The Heff's scores have been swapped around for the last three rounds (due to an issue sorting your names into alphabetical order in Excel). I've updated the table for the round accordingly. But as both of you got exactly the same number of points overall over the last three rounds (17), it doesn't affect the overall table or your positions. Sorry about the slight hiccup and thanks for bringing it to my attention in time! I assure you that nothing dastardly is going on 😁

I doubt he would have started anyway as he'll be lacking sharpness. But even from the bench he's a very useful option to have. This injury will take us almost to the closing of the transfer window, and we already know his agent isn't happy with Notts. It's not going to do anything to calm the speculation about him leaving...

Ihaven't tried the new pies so I can't really comment on them, but I remember us winning an award for our pies in the pre-Pukka days when they were supplied by a local company. You can't go far wrong with a Pukka pie but they're a bit ubiquitous. Also, I prefer my pies to be crispy rather than squidgy.

The resukts: Huddersfield Town 2-0 Doncaster Rovers Luton Town 1-0 Wigan Athletic Stockport County 1-2 Bradford City Colchester United 1-2 Cambridge United Gillingham 4-1 Chesterfield Harrogate Town 1-0 Barrow Altrincham 0-2 Hartlepool United Woking 1-2 Wealdstone Well done to this week's winner @allardyces tash, closely followed by @OoooooTommy! In our league table, @magpiejue is still top and has already built up a cushion, @Blake goes second and @allardyces tash jumps 17 places into third. Got the blues after two whole days with nothing to predict? Help is at hand - round 5 covers Saturday's games and is up and running now. Thanks for playing and see you all there!

A really important win. Shrewsbury were desperately poor and on that showing I wouldn't be surprised if they did a Carlisle, but you've still got to take your chances and beat what's in front of you, and we did just that. Lady luck certainly played a part in our first two goals (the first was a goalkeeper error while the second was a harmless ball in that the visitors failed to clear), but on both occasions we were there and ready to pounce. Special mentions go to Tsuroulla, who has given everyone a lift, and Iorpenda. I still think the latter is sometimes wasteful in possession and spends too much time on the floor for my liking, but he also won the ball constantly and seemed to be everywhere. Some of our play is still sloppy and better opposition might have punished a few things, but we've got three points, some confidence back and Jatta returns on Saturday too. Phew!

Another round coming up on Saturday and we're all just getting in the swing of it. Kick-off is 3pm Saturday and you get a joker each - good luck! Norwich City v Middlesbrough Sheffield United v Millwall Bolton Wanderers v Lincoln City Mansfield Town v Leyton Orient Fleetwood Town v Oldham Athletic Gillingham v Crewe Alexandra Halifax Town v Forest Green Rovers Sutton United v Scunthorpe United

Good news! And you're in luck @Chris, the BBC are also showing a Bundesliga game every week live on iplayer, starting on Friday. The first match is a bit meh but they're showing the Hamburg derby the week after... BBC to show live Bundesliga games on Friday nights - https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cgjyzgj3xjwo