StarkMallard

The first half was dire and I feared the worst but, as Lozzle said, we saw the return of our pre-Christmas fighters in the second half to turn it around. Once we get our foot on the ball (as opposed to the clueless hoofball of the first half) we have some talented players who can cause the opposition all kinds of problems. In the end it was a great win against a decent side, and it gives us the chance to potentially bag our place in the play-offs at Meadow Lane next weekend. I agree on Grant too, he's still worthy of a shirt but he hasn't been quite the same since January.

We've probably fluffed automatic but this is a chance to at least cement our play-off spot. The Coventry fans have sold their full allocation, they know how massive this one is. We need to keep them all quiet!

My thoughts entirely. It's worth noting that Leyton Orient sacked Nolan last season - I'm sure they'd love to swap places with us now, even with our poor form.

Typical that my internet gave up on me, meaning I couldn't follow it on the radio. It worked fine after! I for one would like us to draw a genuinely big club in the next round, or F*rest. Preferably at home. Sure, someone like Shrewsbury would give us a better chance of progression (although we'd still be outsiders), but going out to a team like that would be pretty anticlimactic.

There isn't another (League) Nottingham club. Is he thinking of the one in West Bridgford?

It's easy to say these things - he'll have to prove in on the pitch.

Losing Grant and Yates would blow a massive hole in our midfield. I hope the club are making contingency plans for this. Noble will certainly be an asset, but you're being too optimistic about O'Connor. According to KN he "has a chance" of playing before the end of the season. That won't help us much if the two loanees leave in January. You've also got to bear in mind that he'll have been out for a year and a half - it takes a LONG time to get back into the swing after so long out. He may never be the same player again. As KN doesn't rate Thompson, we'll need replacements if they go. Hawkridge and Alessandro could go on the wings, but we'll need backup. A choice between Noble, Milsom and Hewitt for CM sounds OK, but Noble may well end up getting suspended, Milsom is injury-prone and Hewitt can't fill in at the back if he's needed in midfield. Of course, it'd be best if they don't leave at all. What better way is there to put yourself in the shop window than to star in a promotion-winning campaign in (in Yates' case) your first season of senior football? And who wants to play for Scunny anyway?

Well done lads, terrific away performance. I was a bit concerned that we were sitting too deep and inviting them onto us in the first half but I needn't have worried. What's also encouraging is that four goals came from midfield today and Liam Noble will be eligible from the new year. Stead might not be putting them away at present but at least we're not dependent on him for goals.

Can only agree with @Fozzy, it was a bit of a drag to watch but that was partly testament to Grimsby's good defensive work. The visitors had a couple of decent chances in the first half that could easily have gone in had there been a more clinical finish / less alert keeper, so I'm not unhappy with the point. It was a good crowd and sounded a good atmosphere, shame the match didn't really live up to it.

Luton have handed out a few real spankings so I'm wary here. I'll go for a 2-2 draw and I'll be very happy with that.

Shame he was a bit before my time. According to various anecdotes in Steak Diana Ross and elsewhere, Richards was also something of a character. He would often spend the summer in Spain, go missing and arrive back at training a week late, citing the death of a (possibly made-up) relative. Didn't do his career with Notts any harm though!

What a pity for us. We got the points and are sitting in an automatic promotion spot, but what really counts is that Colchester apparently outbattled us. Luckily for us, if we finish in our current position we'll win promotion to League One, where we need not worry about being outbattled and outplayed by giants of the modern game like Colchester United ever again. Oh. If we'd won 100 points last season we wouldn't have been playing them in the first place. If Brian Clough had never joined F*rest / we'd signed Glenn Roeder permanently / we'd never sold Paul Rideout / the Munto money had been real we'd be established in the Premier League now. As Jimmy Sirrel once said, the better team always wins, the rest is just gossip.

I'm fundamentally happy with a point away but it should have been three. If you make a challenge like Duffy's you need to make sure you take the ball with you. Duffy's general play is fine but he still needs to cut out the clangers. With Hollis clearly out of favour and Bird probably still a bit raw for League football we could do with another good CB to provide competition for places, because at the moment we don't really have an alternative to Brisley and Duffy. The first half was an even affair. I thought Yeovil looked better than their league position suggests, I've certainly seen worse teams than them. Up to their goal we were on top in the second half, but even then we tested their keeper little. I feel we missed the cool head of Stead/Ameobi. We seemingly decided to go long again for this match and it was frustrating to see us simply return possession to Yeovil time and again. Never mind, we got a point. As long as we keep winning at home we can live with that.

It's the next step along the way to morphing into Sam Allardyce. He'll be drinking pints of wine next.

Separated at birth?

I'm amazed yet un-amazed that Sky seemingly chose some random people to pose as Notts fans. What's your source? Having a bunch of fans "support" a TV programme from a makeshift stand might have been a novel idea 20 years ago but they should really have thought of something new by now. I wouldn't say Soccer AM was ever un-PC, but its time has passed and I'm surprised it's still going. I found it all quite harmless fun back in the day and some of it was even mildly amusing, but part of me felt patronised by it even then. Helen always came across as genuine, but Tim Lovejoy was just a complete smarm pie. On the plus side though, his book did spawn one of the best book reviews ever written...

I'd still be happy with a play-off place at the end of the season. Some might be a bit disappointed as we've spent nearly half the season in the top three, but it would still be huge progress. Besides, we've never really pulled clear of fourth place anyway. At the start of the season I was hoping for top ten but fearful we'd end up knocking about in 17th again. I don't think we have enough to win the league but I reckon we'll be there or thereabouts come the end of the season, because even when we're not on our game we're still difficult to beat.

I disagree with Carl Dickinson, on that performance Bristol Rovers won't be comfortable in League One at all. We dominated the game and really should have finished them off long before the 90th minute. Perhaps this is my exile rubbing off on me, but why were the Rovers fans leaving at the end with their team 3-2 down and (sort of) chasing an equaliser? Imagine driving all the way from Bristol and then missing the crucial goal because you were on your way back to the car... But we were excellent in all departments. The way we seized control of the match after going 2-0 down was brilliant and showed how much character the team has. And we played great football too. The occasional long ball is par for the course in this league but our players have much more in their locker than that. I'm not a fan of cashless turnstiles. People missed the kick-off because of the queue at the ticket office when there were fewer than 4000 home fans in attendance. Bad!

You can tell that Sam Allrdyce had a big influence on him. The comments on English managers in the top flight could easily have come from Sam himself. It would be nice if he could follow in Sam's footsteps by winning League Two with 99 points. The full write-up doesn't really tell us anything we already know, but for those who want to see they can find it here.

This. Forte seems to be one of those players who always looks more impressive coming off the bench.

Fair enough but these are early days for him. Not so long ago it looked a matter of time until Shaun Derry went on to bigger and better things and look how that turned out. He needs to stay here, learn from his mistakes and take us forward over the next year or two.

While I feel this team has too much to offer to repeat the slide from the promotion places to the relegation zone we saw under Sheridan, Derry and Gudjon, deep down I think we're overachieving - there's no way we'll finish on 90 points this season. So people have been actively expecting the rot to set in. When you're in the top three and trying to hold onto your place you're in a very different place psychologically than when you're pushing to break into the top three. All of us would do well to remember the table is only a snapshot at this point. No-one ever won anything on 30 points.

Opinions are part of the game! It might be annoying to KN as he feels his authority is being questioned, but everyone who watches their team play thinks about how it could be set up better or which players should be picked. As for the Noble photos, he was taking part in a training session in a public place with members of the public in attendance. If it was supposed to be a secret it was mishandled, if it wasn't then he's got nothing to complain about. At the end of the day fans will exchange their views, some of them knowledgeable, some not. That used to happen in person or in the Football Post or Match Talk. Now it's increasingly happening online but it really isn't anything new.

The odd big boot up to a player capable of holding it up and distributing it has worked for us so far and has its place in football, the problem comes when it's your only tactic. And when you've got Forte and Alessandra up front it makes sense to play the ball to their feet. Dickinson and Tootle in particular are very quick to resort to a long ball. Not only does this often lead to us losing the ball, it also leaves the wing men in front of them isolated and lacking support. Jones offers us something different here as he looks to link up with Grant or Hawkridge in front of him, giving the opposition something to think about. I accept we're not going to start playing total football, but we also have some skilful players on board and we need to play to their strengths.

I missed it last night but it did seem a strange decision to play Forte and Alessandro - who both need the ball played to feet - and leave our best ball-playing midfielder on the bench for an hour. If we're going to play the big boot then we might as well play the big men who can win the arial challenges. I'm a bit concerned that KN has started to believe the hype. We've got some decent players on board but we're not so good that we can afford to drop a player of Grant's quality, especially when his replacement is playing out of position and hasn't really arrived in professional football yet. Although I think it's an attempt at man management, dropping players like that could be interpreted as arrogance by the opposition.