DangerousSausage

Supporting Notts is a ride. Let's liven this up! (Replace Tokyo with Accrington or whatever, obviously) (Notts are the Japanese girl, the killer robots are Wrexham and the giant worm that eats them at 2.11 represents the playoffs. It's a metaphor of course)

That's a great win for us. A crucial moment was when we were 2-1 up and Stone got just enough of a hand on a Stanley shot to divert it wide. Moments later, Palmer slotted a wonderful ball to Langstaff and it's 3-1. So it's definitely one of those that could have gone either way, but that doesn't mean we were lucky. When you have Langstaff, a Jones or a Palmer in your team, those crucial moments on which a game can turn are more likely to go in your favour. Just look at our second goal - 99 times out of a hundred, a striker receiving the ball with his back to goal and with so many red shirts around him is going nowhere. I agree with John Coleman that the yellow cards are getting silly - I think it was Brindley who got booked waiting for the ball boy to give him the ball. And the "yellow for kicking the ball away" rule is being used to penalise players who have a shot a fraction of a second after the whistle has gone. That's not dissent, that's muscle memory! It might not be saying much, but Accrington were the best team I've seen us play so far - they were physical, but they could also bring the ball down a play a bit too. Wouldn't be surprised to see them near the top at the end of the season.

It's outstanding. It shows that people are feeling entertained enough to come back, and there's also real belief that we can build on last season. The place will feel very different the next time I'm over! To put it into context, we haven't averaged five figures over a season since we were in the top flight.

This is an interesting point @liampie. I would wager that most people on here aren't nearly as critical or analytical when they're actually at a match. This is a place where we can mull over and analyse what we've seen, but as the match is usually long finished by the time most people log in to PON, the spontaneous excitement of a match doesn't really come across. It might do when there are live updates, but most people's attention is elsewhere. I think that's reasonable. What is less reasonable is just being an absolute misery as @Chris describes, but that's people for you.

Very impressive performance, for large parts of it we made Tranmere look like a Sunday League team. The way we passed it around them was breathtaking at times and we really should have scored more than two. Then came the substitutions. I've said before, just because you can use five subs, it doesn't mean you should. Replacing half your outfield players stops any momentum in its tracks, then you have the situation we found ourselves in yesterday with Scott coming off injured. That's incredibly unlucky and could have happened in the three subs era as well, but with five substitutions available and in the position we were in it just seems so unnecessary to take that risk. But we've got the three points we deserved and it's hopefully a lesson learned.

Long before my time, but I love a good team photo! Barry Watling is either a midget or is not standing on the bench like the others. Wonder what the story behind that was.

Apparently more than 2,000 away tickets have already been sold so it'll be a belting atmosphere. I'd expect Doncaster to be a bit more ambitious than Morecambe were. They've had a bad start but got a draw against Mansfield, so that's a sign of life. Wanted: an early Notts goal to calm the nerves, then we'll be swinging.

Since we'd shipped 9 goals in our previous 3 games, it was understandable that the focus was on defence. So a clean sheet is a plus. All the same, it feels like two points dropped. We spent the first half playing at walking pace and looked reluctant to take men on, it was reminiscent of Ardleyball. If we'd been a little more positive then, I think we'd have swung it in our favour. We looked a lot brighter at the start of the second half, but the substitutions stopped our momentum and we never regained it. That's a pity as Morecambe were there for the taking. They were well organised off the ball, but very poor on it and the greatest threat to our goal came from unforced errors by Baldwin and Cameron. I think the promotion celebrations must have killed a few of Baldwin's brain cells as his decision making was awful. Despite some of the justified criticism of a few players, they haven't become bad players overnight. They're still getting to grips with a new division and a few changes in the team. The calls to replace half the team I keep seeing on certain social media platforms are ridiculous.

Really delighted with this result, it made my day. While going behind twice wasn't exactly ideal, it allowed us to see the fighting qualities we saw last season and reassure the team that they can turn a game around in this division too. In truth, Grimsby's second came after our strongest phase of the match where we really had them on the ropes. We certainly deserved to win, but the second half was a lot scrappier and we didn't quite seem to have it under control. Some thoughts: - I don't quite understand the point of Stone kicking it so long all the time. Nine times out of ten we just give away possession. - Langstaff was unlucky not to get off the mark. The effort that went over the crossbar had ricoched off the defender and then the keeper and onto Langsatff's already outstretched leg, there wasn't much he could do about it. The goals will come. - 13,000 for the first home game, wow! To put that into perspective, we got 9,000 for our first home game in the Munto season, and that included about 3,000 away fans. Scorers' names in all caps reminds me of the Football Post!

A few years ago I got sick of my double chins and decided to lose some weight. Over several months I dropped from 105 to about 87kg. It was a few years back so some of it has gone back on, but I'm not nearly as heavy as I used to be. I didn't do a lot of exercise - I just joined a free website (FDDB) and monitored what I ate. The key is to eat about 80 to 90% of the calories your body needs (while keepig an eye on fat), then the weight drops off and stays off. But eat too little and your metabolism changes and you start gaining weight from very little. Being conscious of the useless calories you eat goes a long way - I used to drink colossal amounts of apple juice, which is OK in small amounts but very fattening when you drink it like water. After a bit you learn which meals are relatively low in calories but still fill you up, and that's important - if you feel like you're starving all the time, you won't stick to it. If you make your own curries, they're one of the better things you could be eating! Takeaway curries are full of oil and ghee, which isn't quite so great

According to the radio we changed to four at the back @Dripsey3? Last season we got away with sloppy defending at times by outscoring the opposition. That's not going to go in our favour as much this time. It was clear over the summer we needed to improve in this department and it remains to be seen whether Tipton on his own will be enough. We also have an issue in that we got a hammering on the first day, which affects confidence, makes the players more nervous, causing them to make poor decisions and so the cycle goes on. It's partly a mental problem and we need to get over it quickly. That said, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The last two games aren't going to be representative of our season as a whole - against Sutton absolutely everything that could go wrong did go wrong, we had an early sending off and defensively we seemed to forget the basics. Last night we were playing a L1 team with a nervous defence, a different formation and minus many attacking players who might have taken the pressure off a bit. Against Grimsby we have to dominate and play on our terms and not let fear get the better of us. Even just scoring the first goal could help settle them down.

@Fozzy touches on a good point, the players weren't where they needed to be mentally. There's been a lot of hype around the team and noise about our EFL return, and maybe they got carried away with it. Sutton appeared much more focused on the here and now. Maybe this is an experience the team needed. Now it's time to let go of last season, ignore what the bookies are saying and concentrate on doing the simple things.

Short version: that was pants. Longer version: I feel disappointed and let down, and I didn't spend the afternoon in the London rain. I missed most of the first half, but I knew we were losing and a man down. In situations like that, the team that's trailing at least plugs the defensive gaps, the game develops an equilibrium and peters out. Yesterday Sutton murdered us right up to the final whistle and we can count ourselves lucky to have only conceded five. I wouldn't have picked Brindley at the back, he's not really a centre half and got found out in the NL too at times. But he wasn't the only one who failed to compete or pass the ball - and if you're not getting close enough to the opposition or challenging for the ball, it doesn't matter what formation you use. Likewise, you can't put the opposition under relentless pressure with a possession-based approach if you keep losing the ball in your own half. Sutton were much sharper than us and were very effective, they played it long and high, got in our faces and didn't allow us to play our football. But that's no different to what we saw in the NL many times, except yesterday we didn't cope. That's got to change, and quickly. Special mentions go to Cameron for his ridiculous back pass, yet Stone also had plenty of time to decide what to do. I'm not sure whether he was sent off for the deliberate handball outside the box or the foul, either way he made a hash of it and will have a few weeks on the bench to reflect on it even once his suspension is up.

Teams chartering flights to away games has become a regular occurrence and really needs to be stamped out. In a country as small as ours there's no justification for it, especially as the larger clubs can afford to put the team in a hotel overnight. Wrexham have raised eyebrows because of their status, but this is pretty much the norm higher up the leagues. It doesn't seem to be a thing in Germany at all, I've seen several team buses on the motorway here. And the distances covered are much greater too.

They're unbeaten and level on points with first place though! Just finished 1-1, sounds like we played well and dominated possession. A good dress rehearsal. Slightly concerned about the absence of Langstaff, maybe it'll be mentioned in the post-match interview.

Fitting. Wordle 745 5/6 ????⬛⬛⬛???? ⬛⬛???????????? ⬛????????⬛???? ⬛???????????????? ????????????????????

I'd expect a different 11 in both halves to get as many players match fit as possible. It'll be interesting to see how the new signings do and where they play, but we won't be able to draw any conclusions from it. Wonder whether there'll be any trialists? I've been to Nuneaton's old place, a proper old-school rickety ground. Would have been fun to see Notts play there.

Nailed it today! Wordle 744 2/6 ⬛????????⬛???? ????????????????????

I got it, but it was a head scratcher. Wordle 743 5/6 ⬛⬛????⬛⬛ ⬛????⬛????⬛ ⬛????⬛???????? ⬛???????????????? ????????????????????

But you just did, so.....

Took me four goes today. Is it me or are the words getting dafter?

I like them, but I have to watch them on my own! I prefer psychological horror to the "man with hammer/chainsaw/knife runs after screaming woman" type. The Shining, The Exorcist, Psycho... I really enjoyed Jeepers Creepers right up to the end, which I found really anticlimactic. If you like ghost stories, you could do a lot worse than look up Uncanny on BBC Sounds. Some of those really hit home.

Lovely interview. There was talk of him wanting to finish his career at Notts when this move was still in the rumour mill, but I just about dismissed it as wishful thinking from fans. It's brilliant that it happened. Just had a thought. If we play his previous club, would it be the County derby?

This is great stuff, I really liked him when he was Lincoln manager. Maybe a tad old at 44 though ????

Maybe they bought him to balance out the Fitzsimons effect? ????