theAnticlough

I wonder what PONners make of these probabilities… Crewe win - 15% Crawley win or draw - 50% Notts win - 60% That works out at exactly 3% chance of automatic promotion. Or 33 balls in the bag and 1 of them has our name on it. How do you feel about that?

Lewis Macari - Not just a sentimental choice, I really thought he was playing great. The club will look after him and he'll come back better than ever. I thought Ness was fantastic too, as his replacement. And today every sub was really good - Bennetts did more good work in 15mins than he did as a starter last week.

Great news on the guaranteed play-off place Nobody had a bad game today, and many had really good ones - that's exactly what we needed.

Gutted about Macari - feel so sorry for him. Maybe my favourite player and he was having his usual great game with the ball. Let's hope he can come back as strong as ever at some point next season.

That might work! Some pleasant surprises there.

Tbh I'm still sore about last Saturday. I could forgive Cambridge - running into a very good team with a depleted squad, especially key defenders. But not the Barnet game - just so sick of losing games like that. Colchester away last season was around Game 41 or 42...and was another shocking perfromance in a crunch game (I think that was when autos slipped away). The way we went down so tamely was a real foreshadowing of the play-offs. Let's see if there's more determination to get something today. I think it's become more difficult for MP to pick the team . Attacking midfield has been a disaster all season, so it's amazing that it's got even worse! A lot of the squad are now unplayable - given so many chances, but they go further backwards if anything The players picked today need to take full personal responsibility for putting in a good performance.

QPR 1-2 Derby County Stoke City 1-1 Portsmouth Blackpool 2-1 Leyton Orient Bradford City 1-1 Bolton Burton Albion 1-1 Exeter City Chesterfield 2-0 Crewe Alexandra Joker Shrewsbury 1-1 Fleetwood Walsall 1-1 Harrogate

Me neither so far

I'm a bit more optimistic about this one than I was before Barnet. Wasn't a 1-2 defeat the most predicable result ever? As I wrote on that thread, all I wanted was to stop them winning - a draw, even if it damaged our auto chances. I just want to see us stop giving teams what they want. Colchester are a mid-table team with nothing to play for. But is this team the same as Maynard's? - One that just refuses to rise to the occasion? We'll see tomorrow. About the defence....I wouldn't mind unchanged to start this away game. And even Macari at RWB if Tsaroulla isn't fit. Then if we need to press after HT, everyone move over one Macari-Ness-McDonald. We have to recognise that Bedeau hasn't contributed anything going forward all season.

Exactly, May 2022 revisited. But how well did that turn out? Montague added Maca, Scott and Austin. Found a manager to play Nemane over DKE. Was soon to add JJ and Bostock. He’d recruited players who are now, have been, or are soon to be Championship players - Maca, Ruben, Baldwin. Our 4th NL season was a masterclass, why can’t our 4th L2 season be the same. I’m not concerned about this news, apart from the possible impact it has on this season.

Nice topic. I've always got a musical fad on the go...spotify when I'm exercising well, youtube otherwise....but I find I'm always drawn back to the same era... The last month or so I've been on a John McGeoch binge Magazine: The light pours out of me / Motorcade / Rhythm of Cruelty Siouxsie and the Banshees: Spellbound / Israel / Arabian Knights Public Image Limited: Rise / Seattle / Disappointed Most played Track of this week - The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary (I wouldn't object to that being played in the Notts dressing room on Saturday to get them going!)

@Chris I will try to check it out when I get back from work this pm Thanks for all the amazing work to create and maintain this online community for us

FWIW I thought RodMac was fine. But a 6/10 maybe and a typical first game back from injury after a long lay-off. It's a trajectory he has to go on, and lets hope he's at his best by the time the play-offs arrive. With Platt out we need him to have any chance. I don't think we lost because of the backline yesterday - like Cambridge we just couldn't make the ball stick further forward

Have to agree @gtownjohnno He did the same with Platt (to accommodate Rodmac) v Chesterfield and he did his ACL sprinting back and forth down the line. MP's treatment of Macari (constantly subbing him and dropping him for CBs at times) has been one of his blindspots IMO. Either Rodmac was ready to come back or he wasn't, you gain nothing by putting another CB at Right Back for insurance I think Ness can play RCB OK, but not for a must win home game when it means supplanting one of your best ball users

I don't know. The problem with the play-offs is that you have an opponent! Usually one that really, really wants to win and to beat them you usually have to want it more. It's as much about will as it is about skill. It's not about being 'nice' or 'nasty' but you've got to be really competitive and it doesn't look like we are (again).

You’re absolutely right there. One thing we know about the club is that they’re not always ready to react when bad stuff happens Like when Luke Williams left When Montague left When Crowley left followed by Didzy The No10 positions have been an absolute nightmare this season, yet we play to a system that depends on that area for creativity and production (goals and assists) which have been chronically lacking

I feel that some of fan base is casting around for something to blame for the collapse in form just when it matters. In all of that, Martin Paterson is in danger of getting off too lightly. He's done well overall and I don't think he's in too much danger - but we shouldn't forget he's a 38 year-old rookie coach who has made mistakes. How much has he taken on board input from the 'Technical Board'? We don't know...but his stubbornness with Iorpenda is a case in point IMO. "Tom will score goals'' was his early refrain, but his 3 in 44 have only come from the few games he started deeper in Central Midfield. He sees the game more from there, is under less pressure, and benefits from coming from deep. But instead of that, we have had the poor Gagliardi signing Norburn, who is the wrong partner for Palmer. Macari has played lovely football this year, but he's taken every opportunity to drop or sub him, instead of building the confidence of one of our best footballers. Bennetts shouldn't have been anywhere near the team today after his 3/10 last week. He was even worse today. I think some fans give him the benefit of the doubt because he seems like a 'strong character' but I wonder how easy he is to work with. Is he collaborative and willing to take on board input from others? I'm still excited about what we can achieve with him next season (and maybe still this one), but the Bros need to remember it was our DoF who gave us one the best season of attacking football we've ever seen plus a promotion. If MP can work with that - great. If not, let's find another Luke Williams.

Kind of deja vu, I got Palmer over Ness - the only two who verged on being good IMO. And that's doesn't include any captaincy issues - it's just based on the play that we saw. Maybe Palmer looks good compared to the ineffective, inactive Norburn beside him. The worst? Well that was a contender for worst individual game of the season from Bennetts today. The subs were really poor too.

So sick of losing crunch matches. They get exactly what they want - we let that happen on our home ground yet again. We haven't been able to rid ourselves of last season's Losers mentality

Disappointing so far. We're the home team shooting for an auto spot - we're not supposed to look second best to Barnet. I suppose we're still missing 5 first choice players, but it tells Bennetts is an absolute liability, cannot do a thing right

Fantastic news on McDonald - welcome back to one of our best players this season. JJ we expected, but still great to see him on the team sheet. Dennis and Bennetts can consider themselves lucky - hoping for much better from them today

Bristol City 1-2 Norwich City Watford 1-2 Sheffield United Exeter 0-2 Stockport County Mansfield 1-2 Luton Town Fleetwood Town 1-2 Chesterfield Joker Oldham Athletic 1-1 Salford Solihull Moors 2-1 Boston Sutton 2-1 Altrincham

I'm also tracking Wimbledon who have been dropping like a stone - a couple of good games for Exeter and they're straight back down as well IMO, the biggest problem at L2 level is the officiating - too many players who can't play football are allowed to make a living at the expense of those that can

Well it's a world game @Robbie. We spent a couple of decades seeing England humiliated on the international stage and our club sides went backwards until we caught up for skill, technique and tactics. The top Prem sides will never veer too far away from competitive levels of those 3 things. And naturally there's a trickle down the domestic leagues. I think Bromley will be coming back down with a thud. I wouldn't want to pay to watch them.

What game is that from @Piethagoram ? Love it. But get braced for all the wrong conclusions to be drawn if we fail to gain promotion....how we need taller nastier players to give the ball away for us