Robbie

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Your Monday Afternoon Weather

Your Monday Morning Weather

A big welcome from me @Richard Eley PON is a friendly place & a great community to talk about Notts & things in general.

These are the ratings for the Notts players against Vale from whoscored.com

@Super_Danny_Allsopp Notts are one point behind the league leaders. They have scored 17 & only conceded 9. Williams had conceded 19 goals at the same stage last season. Have faith. Stuart will work it out. He's done quite a lot to improve the team already.

It's great work you are doing @Chris Memories are being made and recorded that will last for generations to come.

Hey guys. We sit on 18 points one point behind leaders Walsall. Are things that bad. I don't think so.

@Super_Danny_Allsopp I think 2 is very harsh on Maynard. He played what he thought was his best eleven & you have to remember that Notts have 4 of their best players out, including their best, Jodi. It will take a few games for the team to adjust to his loss. With Maynard you just have to look at the bigger picture. He's sorted out the defence, which has improved immeasurably. Apart from the one goal conceded, the defence played well & the team created chances, but we just didn't take them. For the 10 games so far I'd rate Stuart 7.5/10

@Joshua Cundy was sent upfront late on to do a job for Stuart. It's not his natural position but you have to give him Kudos for trying. He nearly scored late on too

@CliftonMagpie To give him credit, Stuart put Cundy up front & Cundy extracted a good save from their goalie, so putting him up there nearly paid off, but I agree, at home we need two up front. We missed Didzy, who could have been the second striker

Your Sunday Evening Weather

Notts were the better side & on a different day would have scored in the first 20 minutes. Teams are going to come to meadow lane & sit back and just wait for opportunities. Notts need to be able to counter this because it will happen at every home game just like last season. In this match we missed Jones, Didzy, Grant & Edwards. Notts need to be more incisive up front to break these teams down. I hope that lessons will be learned for the next home match.

Cloudy with a chance of drizzle first thing on Sunday.

I would have thought Notts will field a mix of first teamers & academy players like they did against Burton. The side that beat Burton played very well, so I have no problem with Stuart playing a similar side to face Northampton. We may see the players that came off the bench today in the starting eleven. Players such as Martin, Cundy, McDonald, Brown & Scott need the match practice. The game is a perfect opportunity for Stuart to get these players up to speed, because they will all be needed at some point. Key areas will be all over the pitch. It will be important for the defence, midfield & attacking players to put in a good performance to push for a place against Chesterfield on Saturday. I would be pleased with a draw. It will depend how strong a team Northampton put out for the match.

I think that Notts were the better side over the 90 minutes, & Notts had several chances in that first half, that another day would have gone in. Apart from the goal, I thought that Notts were comfortable in defence apart from the last few minutes when they were pushing up trying to get an equaliser. We have to bear in mind that Notts were without 4 of their best players, Jones, Edwards, McGoldrick & Grant, & they were clearly missing today to get that cutting edge, which was not there. If you look at the table it looks like teams are beating each other, & Notts are still in the mix just one point behind Walsall, who are top Notts just need to keep battling and get through to the new year, there or there abouts near the top, then hope to get Jones, Grant & Edwards back, plus a new striker in the transfer window to boost their promotion push.

Update Jodi Jones. Out till at least January 25. Curtis Edwards. Out till at least January 25. Lucas Ness. Possibly available in a few weeks. Conor Grant. Knee injury, six weeks out minimum David McGoldrick. Sore hamstrings due to tiredness.

I think we have to put things into perspective. If Notts had put one of those 3 or 4 chances away in the first 25 minutes, the result may well have been different. Vale would have had to come out and that would have left space for Notts to exploit. Notts did perform at a high level but unfortunately, conceded to a Vale break on the counter. There is no doubt that Notts missed, Jones, Edwards, Grant & McGoldrick today News about Grant, he's going to be out for at least 6 weeks maybe even longer, so that's more bad news on the injury front. Notts are still up there near the top & still in the mix. Notts just have to dig in & try to grind out results while these key players are missing, & that will begin at Chesterfield next Saturday.