StarkMallard

Time to dig out your crystal balls again! And in case you're still waiting for your scores from round 4 (spoiler: you are), I'll be back in the land of sausage and sauerkraut on Sunday and will post them afterwards. Round: 5 Kick-off: Saturday 5 September, 3pm Don't forget your joker! Burnley v Bristol City Millwall v Bolton Wanderers Barnsley v Stevenage Burton Albion v Cambridge United Accrington Stanley v Crawley Town Bristol Rovers v Rotherham United Fylde v Worthing Wealdstone v Kidderminster Harriers

Interesting, although contradictory, contributions from @theAnticlough and @Graham here. In a way I agree with both. JJ is a player who gets you out of your seat and has contributed to countless goals. Without him, it's quite possible we wouldn't be where we are today. I'm also in no doubt that he's good enough for L1. He's one of the last players I wanted to see leave, let alone to a potential rival. Yet the club shouldn't be sentimental. After winning promotion back to the league, we held on to players we, with hindsight, should have parted ways with. I believe it cost us back-to-back promotions. JJ offers flair and creativity, but isn't very strong defensively and perhaps the club thought it could get an upgrade. Hence him possibly being offered new terms as a squad player rather than the automatic starter he wanted to be. We've let go of quality players before and emerged stronger overall. If the new LWBs are a worthy replacement and the squad as a whole is improved and can compete at L1 level, we might have done the right thing here, as sad as it feels right now. I'm just glad that the uncertainty and the rumours have ended.

Birmingham City 1-1 Southampton Swansea City 1-0 Watford Bromley 1-0 Leyton Orient Huddersfield Town 2-0 Oxford United (joker) Wycombe Wanderers 0-2 Sheffield Wednesday Chesterfield 2-1 Gillingham Exeter City 0-2 Barnet Northampton Town 2-0 Crawley Town

This looks like a very good signing, I'm glad the club have managed to seal it. Kanu and Smyth offer two very different approaches, so along with goals (hopefully) it'll give us more tactical flexibility too.

Reminder for Tuesday night... @Megan_Elizax @super_ram @Michael D Pie. @Fan of Big Tone @menzinho @cheeky~k8 @McPie

The results: @Megan_Elizax wins Saturday's round with 13 points, congrats! Overall, @4everapie stays top of the tree, with @Megan_Elizax making a big jump into second and @super_ram sneaking into the top three. Thank you all (plus Diesel the horse) for playing! Dates for your diary: Round 4: Tuesday 1 September (fixtures online now - click here!) Round 5: Saturday 5 September (fixtures posted on Wednesday) Round 6: Saturday 12 September (fixture posted the Wednesday prior)

I wanted to make a couple of comments before the match, but I didn't want to anger the football gods. With the three points safely in the bag, here they are: Notts have beaten all of the current 91 league clubs. Only Port Vale share this. Conversely, we have been beaten by 90 league clubs - the other one is Burton. Losing would have given us the unique record of having beaten and been beaten by every other league club. That's a record I can do without! I should have been there yesterday but changed my plans due to illness. As such, it was inevitable that we would win. We were a distant second best in the first half, but for all that Burton bossed the first 45 minutes, they posed almost zero goal threat. But we were disjointed, painfully slow and second to every ball. What a dramatic turnaround in the second half and a much-needed win! Finneran looks an outstanding signing to me, his touch, control and passing is fantastic. Mustapha did his best in an unfamiliar role in the first half but was much more comfortable in the second - he looks quite rough, but if he can shake his habit of overplaying (common in academy players) we could have a lot of fun with him. And of course Smyth gave us a focal point in the second half and finally unpacked the Burton lock.

He just oozes class - his touch and general play were levels above anyone else on the pitch, and he's only 18! Some of the balls forward he played - chef's kiss. We're looking crowded in central midfield (unless one or two of the injured players will be out for longer than expected - we'll see), but I can see why we didn't want to pass up this opportunity. The most eye-catching debuts are generally from strikers. Brett Angell's hat trick springs to mind, but then he was an experienced striker who was well known in the lower divisions. I'd never heard of Finneran until about an hour before kick off.

Tuesday night is our first midweek round of the season, here are your fixtures! Round: 4 Kick-off: Tuesday 1 September, 7:45pm Don't forget your joker! Birmingham City v Southampton Swansea City v Watford Bromley v Leyton Orient Huddersfield Town v Oxford United Wycombe Wanderers v Sheffield Wednesday Chesterfield v Gillingham Exeter City v Barnet Northampton Town v Crawley Town

Blackburn Rovers 2-1 QPR Watford 1-1 Wet Spam Leyton Orient 1-0 Barnsley Stevenage 2-0 Doncaster Rovers Stockport County 2-1 Wycombe Wanderers (joker) Colchester United 1-0 Rochdale Grimsby Town 2-0 Fleetwood Town Newport County 1-1 Tranmere Rovers

I hope this one is true! A promising young player on the way up who knows where the net is. I remember him being a right pain when we played Walsall last season as well. Would be happy with this.

!! HYDRATION BREAK !! You may continue.

Disappointing week for me. I was due to come to the UK today and wanted to go to Saturday's game, but I caught a cold. As a result, I had to put my flights back a few days (giving Lufthansa even more money in the process) and will now miss out. I'm actually feeling a bit better today, which isn't really a consolation! Finding out a lot of things about Dolly Parton I didn't know. Here she is talking proper: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1DUAmTbyyT

I much prefer the blue kit, but a lot of people do like it and it's sufficiently different to our other kits to work as an away kit. Gives me Trew era vibes but I hope that's where the similarity ends. Brilliant pics published by the club though, very Italian!

Let's be having you!!! Round: 3 Kick-off: 29 August, 3pm Don't forget your joker! Blackburn Rovers v QPR Watford v Wet Spam Leyton Orient v Barnsley Stevenage v Doncaster Rovers Stockport County v Wycombe Wanderers Colchester United v Rochdale Grimsby Town v Fleetwood Town Newport County v Tranmere Rovers