theAnticlough

If he wants to return, the Bros should do it. I bet he's been tracking an interesting pool of players at Swansea, maybe we can snag a couple next window 😉

It's gone... Ardley & Monatgue / Burchnall & Montague / Williams & Montague / Maynard & Montague / Maynard & Nobody / Maynard & Gagliardi / Nobody & Gagliardi / Paterson & Gagliardi I'd hazard a guess that Williams and Montague was the peak of this coach/head of recruitment combo, and Paterson and Gagliardi the most fractious and unworkable. I think we need to bring in a true stats/analytics based Head of Recruitment, drop the technical board now and come up with some other mechanism, and let both sides really concentrate on their jobs.

I'll direct you to Piethagoram's last post on this thread @YoopEyes, for the top and tail of it Sure, you want to look at 160 years rather than the last 6, 2019-25, when the Football Radar brothers came in with their statistical, analytical based approach and regained league status with it. I think you will have to wait til the Post-Reedtz era to have any chance of seeing an ex-player manager who also acts as the effective Head of HR as well. Even then it would have to be set to a Hovis commercial and we could all dust off our flat caps and maybe even go back to pigs' bladders 😀 MP has made an OK start, and many like him, but I don't see why the he Bros should entrust the whole operation of their multi-million investment to a novice head coach.

Yes, all good points Also, wouldn't going to a traditional manager model with no data background be saying that Football Radar is some kind of snake oil company. Or it's failed in the place it's been given the most opportunity. It hasn't failed though, we just gagged on the last appointment it seems.

yeah, I don't think we should ever go back to the model that got us relegated. We need the Head Coach to concentrate on his core job

I'd look at that as the model that got us relegated @YoopEyes, and the one with a Head of Recruitment as the model that got us back up - found us gems like Ruben, Cal, Maca, Cedwyn etc while the Head Coach was able to concentrate on the very taxing role of managing the team. The window's closed til January now. The statement talks about how he will be replaced. We're more likely looking for someone better than Gagliardi in the role rather than switching models and asking Pato to become Arthur Daley or Delboy. He looks like Uncle Albert anyway, so it's a non-starter.

Shocked. It's not like the Reedtz's Notts to have a key hire blow up so quickly. Were the working relationships strained. Did technical board meetings when the team starts 1 pt from 9 set a toxic tone? Were the Bros' expecting more recruitment umph with no sign of any top talent coming in to replace Didzy, Crowley, Bass etc? Was failing to add quality to the squad in the last window a big disappointment? This is where my mind's going. But I know nowt so take no notice of me :)

There's a good chance he could be on the bench at Gills @Randall. Jatta and Dennis did alright together, including defensively. Maybe MP will want to roll with that again meaning just 1 slot behind and JJ 's got nowhere near Iorpenda's level of performance on Saturday. What a player JJ would be if he had 20% more strength and 20% more speed (he wouldn't be at Notts 😊) but since he doesn't, he gets a weekly battering playing inside. It's a shame but I feel the slot has been slipping away from him from the first game onwards.

I demand a play-off with Port Vale for the title of true, all-time English champions

Welcome @Graham, there's so much on this site to enjoy. You've done yourself a favour!

Agree with most of that @NortonNCFC, apart from the bit right at the end. I'm glad Pato said that. Going forward I thought we got really good performances out of the front three on little service. The build up play just wasn't happening all that much. Gordon and Tsaroulla seemed to get trapped out wide, the defenders were reluctant to move into space ahead and Palmer and Norburn are hardly going to break the lines. Great win, but narrow, we eked out the 3pts for once.

One thing to consider is that we are coming off an ex-manager and team that was one of the worst 'clutch' performers we've seen. Especially during that crucial run-in when we seem to lose close match after close match and if anyone was going to impact the game late it was always going to be the opposition. We've got to win at least a few close matches which are in the balance. Hopefully, our share or more than our share this season. Beating Fleetwood at home 1-0 is a nice result and we'll all take the win but it doesn't suddenly mean we're George Graham's Arsenal. On another day, the fact that our defenders, WBs and CMs couldn't dominate the ball, will come back to bite us. Fleetwood had enough of the game to get a draw. Great, we might have shaken off being the soft touches we were, but to rack up the wins and stay high up the table we're going to have to play high quality football on a consistent basis.

@NottsTastic, yeah he was the best of the subs. Seemed a lot more up for it

I gave it a listen @Robbie. I've really enjoyed Magpie Circle this year, it's been getting better and better, but a large part of that is the ever-consistent Stall. I've watched the vlogs too, the Friday preview - all alright and worth watching For me though, this 'Sunday supplement' is a video or podcast too far. Too many of the opinions seem over-egged to me and football takes seen through the sole prism of Paul Mace's slant on the game rub me up the wrong way. I found myself disagreeing too often to find it enjoyable!

Good post @McPie, especially the part above. Most fans have seen enough football over the years, not to need to speculate on this. Successful teams are more often than not those that can perform well and take the game to the opposition, overrun and outplay them. We've also seen there's another way. Sometimes resolute teams that can defend really well without being all that talented offensively can succeed too. For the first, most common category, a team will have to be otherworldly to succeed if it doesn't have a decent defence. Many of us had our hearts broken in 1982 with Brazil, maybe the greatest collection of attacking talent ever. For fans sake I don't think you should set out to be George Graham's Arsenal. Design your team to attack, and if you need to fall back on a solid defence, it's great to have that in your locker.

I'll give it a look a bit later, but the club were upfront about the changes before the season started and with the appointment of MP. Everyone was saying that they need 'possession with a purpose' and need to look to play forward a lot more. And who wouldn't want to be more resilient, tougher and focussed on winning? So yeah, there are changes - ones they spoke openly about and seem to be delivering on.

Agree with that@Ash, it was Norburn's best game. He showed for it more and was more involved

Shot outs to the usual suspects - Palmer, McDonald, Dennis and this time Bedeau and Jatta for really solid 7 out of 10 performances, but I think Iorpenda just edged it. He was the difference IMO, the spark and the main thorn in their side. He was also asked to be the sole player linking midfield with the forwards this week, normally we have 2 in this role, and to be honest he did a better job alone than 2 players did in the games before.

Very nice to bag the 3pts today. Nobody let us down today, everyone put in a shift in a solid team performance. I thought our front players all did well on not a lot of service. Weakest area I felt was the WBs, but you can't have everything and those players tried. Are league 2 teams clones? I could swear I saw exactly the same set of players in Tranmere, Shrewsbury, Bromley, Barrow shirts

You were correct

I don't think MP will want to change his shape. If so that could mean Dennis back to an inside forward slot. We'll soon see

Personally, I think the answer is Dennis to an inside-forward slot. He holds the ball up, gets involved, closes down and coming from deeper might open up different scoring opportunities for him. One thing's for sure, we can't make a promotion challenge without goal output from those two positions. And from all the options, he's the only one who's shown he can put the ball in the onion bag at the rate we need

Interesting point @Chris, JJ has underwhelmed so far inside but there's no clamour to move him back to WB. He's just about done well enough to deserve a few more games inside, especially if he's going to have both Jatta and Dennis ahead of him now. But what are the other options? Luker's out. Grant and Traore can't really be relied on to produce, Hall's unproven. Iorpenda might not give us the stats we need, Jarvis can't seem to get going, Edwards is gone. The loss of Didzy and Crowley in the space of a few months was a massive blow, if you think in terms of replacements. It's going to be interesting what we get from that/those positions today and from whom. I think we're going to see Dennis there sooner than later.

I forgot how to count in my post on another thread, you can't have a midfield diamond, a front 2 and WBs obviously! :) Agree with @Robbie, let's see Hall (standing in for JJ) playing behind Jatta + Dennis for this one But we need that vertical, up and down the pitch movement if we're having 2 up front, so I don't see a place for Norburn is this one, Iorpenda to be Palmer's sidekick please, especially for a home game. If you think about it, you can't have a front 2 plus Norburn and Palmer in a WB formation, that's heading for 4-4-2. The other solution is bringing back Dennis as an inside forward No.10. MP might do that.

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