Fozzy

The main issue I have with Maynard is that he still can’t stop the goals from going in, but he has changed us from a side that attacks with insightful movement and passing with quick ball delivery into danger areas, to a side that plays plodding crab football that relies on either Jodi or Dan creating something. We’re better off going back to all out attack at home as this style of football in strangling the side and boring to watch. Massive and expensive decisions need to be made in the summer as 50% of this side aren’t good enough to play league football for Notts and Maynard isn’t good enough to lead them. I did think Robertson had a really good game today and was easily my MotM, without him we would have been overwhelmed in midfield and he seemed to be the only one willing to tussle with Smith.

Baldwin is still suspended @menzinhoas he has received 10 yellows, so an automatic 2 game ban. Smith is the obvious threat and I think he will bully both Warner and Cameron. We kept him fairly quiet in the first fixture so hoping we can do the same again.I think we will need the keeper to claim as many crosses as possible.

All the things you have stated though @Robbie are things that Notts cannot do. When was the last time we were able to batten down the hatches when going down to 10? You remove one attacker for 1 defender/midfielder when down to 10 and the obvious one is Nemane, not two of your best 3 players. And not at least trying Jatta until the 90th minute is ridiculous. He should have come on a lot earlier. Thankfully Sam had a great game, otherwise we would have got drubbed by 5 or 6.

Not if it is jeopardising the clubs revenue with gates falling though @Robbie. Many may not come back next season and that impacts the whole FFP thing. Langstaff and Jones’s stock will start falling which means they will leave for significantly lower transfer figures than they would go for if they were still firing. Still need 6 points, I have no idea where they are going to come from unless we make a change. Rumours circulating that there has been a bust up with players, and he’s lost the dressing room. Plus he looks to have lost the fanbase. Sometimes, you need to bite the bullet, admit you got it wrong and pay the price.

Time to go. Down to 10 men and he takes off our only attacking threat for a defender and midfielder. Has he not realised that Notts CANNOT shut up shop!?! Any sustained pressure and we crumble, score one and a second will come quickly and that left us with no chance of getting an equaliser. He’s been a bit unlucky at the start, but as a side, we are now far worse than we were when he was appointed, players look confused and despondent as to what formation they are supposed to be playing. One last thing, the season is far from over, both FGR and Grimsby won tonight, it is not inconceivable that we may still go down. Two more away games to go, don’t fancy our chances in either of them with Maynard in charge.

I’m starting to think that the Notts job is too big for Maynard. I thought he was the ideal candidate when Williams left but now I’m starting to doubt that he can turn it around. His decision making during games is poor and I think he’s starting to look a little defeated. We’ve gone from being a team that scores goals for fun but also lets goals in, to a side still conceding but now can’t score. The players have lost the zip to their passing and movement and have become way too easy to defend against. I would say that if we lose the next two games, his position will become untenable as we cannot carry on with this run. At this rate, we will lose all 11 games remaining and you cannot lift a side for the following season that has lost 15 in a row. If you’ve lost the players and the fans, the owners will have no choice but to pull the plug. Massive clear out of players, staff and recruitment team required this summer.

It is embarrassing, no other word for it, Sutton have scored 40 goals all season, but 9 of them have been against us, and I hate to keep banging on about it but we had warnings in pre season that the defence wouldn’t be good enough. Then August came and it showed from the off that they weren’t good enough, what does the club do? It signs a couple of kids to bolster it. January comes and it is now evident and has an imperative need for upgrade, what does the club do? Signs another kid! This falls on Montague and his team, they have let the club and supporters down appallingly since the start of the season, only signing Macari and Robertson that look anything like half decent is shocking (juries out on Colkett and Jatta as not seen enough). You can’t keep signing kids and injury prone players as you are hoping rather than anticipating that they will make a difference, you have to sign solid, experienced pros as well. Maynard is fighting a losing battle here as the players just won’t perform for him, but chopping and changing formations mid game is just asking for trouble. You can’t experiment during a game just find a system and stick to it, it’s not as if we’ve got a barn door striker on the bench that we can chuck on to cause havoc for the final 15 if chasing a game. A lot of players need to leave in the summer, but the ones more likely to go are the ones who are actually still trying to perform.

We could only go direct down the channels though as we are too small through the middle, we would need a proper target man for that and we just don’t have one. You’re absolutely right @Robbie, we have never been able to deal with the high press, even when Birchnall was in charge. Today, Crewe nailed us with it and doubled up on both our wingers as soon as they got the ball. Contrast that to Crewe’s first goal, two Crewe players over for a short corner and Notts only send one player over to stop it. They had all the time in the world to get that ball into the box and just cannot defend crosses. I don’t blame Maynard, he’s trying to find solutions to problems that have been here for a long time. Richard Montegue’s team are the real culprits, for their failure to find defenders good enough for league two. He’s been more obsessed by their passing stats rather than their defensive ones.

Issue is, this Notts side cannot play ugly, it is too lightweight to try and play physical. I watched Jatta and my in depth analysis after 45 minutes would be that he looks quite quick and ran around a bit! He didn’t really do anything else. Looked a bit weak against their centre halves, and not that great in the air. He needs the ball over the top to run onto, but if the defence sits deep he won’t have that option. The main trouble now is that we had a really small squad at the start of the season and lost three of those players to long term injuries by October. That has meant that the rest of the 1st XI are burnt out and can’t give any more. The urgency has gone, and there just isn’t the same effort being put into closing down the opposition. Today was pretty awful, we didn’t even start to play until around the 35 minute mark and by then the game was gone. At one stage in the second half you could even see the frustration on Balwin’s face when he had to play the ball back to the keeper as he had no other options available. Subbing off Robertson was an error and Crowley was playing way too deep and was completely ineffective for most of the game. I will add though that the Crewe players were embarrassing with their feigning injuries, but luckily the ref wasn’t having any of it. 3 more points needed to stay up and that’s all we can expect to do this season now. Big summer rebuild required, but unfortunately we have gifted too many 2 year contracts to players proving that that they can’t step up to the levels required, and that could be a massive sticking point.

Would say that from reading the above he is spot on. I won’t listen to his interview though as I think he is the most disingenuous manager I have ever come across, the blokes a low life and not worth the air time. He never gives the opposition any credit when they beat him and is even worse when his side wins.

Totally unexpected result but I felt more confident when I saw the team sheet. Playing 4 centre halves (trying to think if Macari was a RB at Stoke) across the back just gives that extra cover and still leaves us with 4 quality attackers in the side, along with Robertson who is getting better and better the more he plays. Fully deserved win, we looked fairly solid and hopefully the more we play this system the more we will get used to it. Credit to Maynard for playing it, as it is something Luke refused to do because he didn’t want to lose an attacker.

Exactly @Piethagoram, our defence has no awareness of threat, are physically bullied and have no urgency to close down and get tight to attackers. The least said about our keeper the better, but he has leaden feet, and refuses to get physical and leave his line for corners. He reminds of the goalkeepers on the old ‘Super Striker’ table top football game, as they never left their line and by the time you got them to dive the ball is nestling in the back of the net.

Yet another young, inexperienced defender. Will be a good player in a couple of years but at the moment he is making the mistakes you would expect a young player to make. Would be good alongside an experienced, vocal partner, oh wait, we don’t have one of those. Again, the recruitment team have ignored our defensive needs in the window.

Well, that was a tough watch. Never created one clear opening in the first half as Crowley’s goal was all his own work, Gillingham just did the basics well at the back, which is something that we are incapable of doing and we couldn’t break them down. Stone is without a doubt, the worst keeper I remember in a Notts shirt for many a year. Immobile, flat footed, and glued to his line for crosses. That third goal was totally shambolic, we’ve just got to find a way to ship him out in the summer. I’m pretty sure the season is done for us now, without Matty we just have no idea what to do and we can’t move the ball quick enough without him. We’re physically too small and get so easily bullied by bigger sides and our players just can’t cope with it, only Robertson was willing to get stuck in and try to win the ball, the rest of the side appear to be scared of getting hurt! Going to take us at least two seasons to be in a position to challenge for promotion, we need a lot of personnel change.

I despair at some of the comments on Twitter saying that the manager isn’t good enough. The blokes had 2 games against top 3 clubs, what do they expect?!? Defensively we’re much better and the goals will come, it takes time to implement a new manager’s ideas. Even the Mansfield fans that I know think that Macca should have had a penalty. Goes to show that Nigel played a blinder by outing last week’s ref for poor decisions, obviously got into this refs head not to give us anything.

Mansfield will press our back 3 again, and with the horrible pitch state they have at the moment it will lead to us making mistakes. Fully expect Flint to play as I don’t think his shoulder was dislocated and he’s as hard as nails, so I’m guessing it will end 3-1 to them with us getting a late consolation goal. They’re a bigger and stronger side than us, and we don’t have the height up front to go long. I just can’t see us getting the win but would love to be proved wrong, and if we can’t do it now with all their injuries and suspensions then I don’t know when we can.

Brindley has to go I’m afraid, the guy never seems to have any urgency to get back into position or to make any kind of block. Not a bad ball player, but his positional sense is terrible. This isn’t obviously based on yesterday’s game, but it looks like he’s up to his old tricks from the highlights I’ve seen and he has been guilty of this all season.

Just goes to show that despite the fact I played senior cricket to a decent level for over 25 years, I know nowt!!! ???? Great win to be fair, thanks to two men. Still think we would have lost if Kohli had played though.

England are currently nowhere near good enough to compete with India, especially in India. Batting is too erratic and the bowling too much of a muchness. You need to be either a really good spinner or express quick and our bowlers (except sicknote Wood) are neither of those.

Good luck to the lad, and hopefully see a bit more of him over the next month or two. Hopefully next season (or even this if we can ever get Morias and Randall fit) comes around, we’ll help his development by loaning him out to a decent level team.

Our defence is garbage, but has been for a couple of seasons. Fans knew it needed strengthening in the summer, but all we got were two kids. I also think that we can still play high possession football away from home but definitely need a shift in personnel by adding a proper CDM with pace, heading and tackling ability, a better back 3 who can actually mark and close down the opposition, and a competent goalkeeper who can marshal his back line and claim crosses. We also need either another striker or attacking midfielder as Morias is a sicknote and Randall is more like Lord Lucan than a footballer! Finally, I’d like to see a proper RWB in place of Nemane, someone who can actually defend as well as attack. This won’t all come in January so needs to be sorted for next season. We are not good enough away from home because we are too lightweight and can’t cope when pressed. We are also not good enough because we only have around 6 or 7 players in the first XI capable of winning us promotion. I hope the owners, directors and management have now realised that you need a larger squad in the EFL to be competitive as ours is now threadbare because of its size and injury list.

Agree with @Robbie__64, keep the same side if fit as they have nearly 2 weeks to recover for the next game. This will be a test as Tranmere’s form has picked up, but we will be better than them IF we continue like we have for the last 3 games. Just keep mistakes down to a minimum and we will be fine.

Mick Walker went right down in my estimations after this game as I felt he showed no class whatsoever in singling out Dijkstra for his mistake. I laid just as much blame on Cherry as he came rushing out when there was no need to as Dijkstra had it covered. Overall, it was a more than fair result on the night as Derby had by far the best chances, but Gary Mac could have put the game out of reach but shot too near their keeper when normally he would have buried it. That Derby side was an expensive unit as well with Tommy J, Shorty, Paul Kitson, Paul Simpson and Gabbiadini in it (I think Gabbiadini was on the bench).

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I don’t know anything at all about women’s football (apart from the fact it’s poor) so can’t think of anybody really. Wild guess would be Chi Chi Mendes?