hello, @Sophie d. welcome to pon.  

Morning all, I’m back! Ok don’t get too excited. We arrived at East Midlands last night came home through floods to a freezing cold house. A big shock from the warmth of the Canaries. We couldn’t sleep we were that cold.

I won’t be at the match tonight I need to acclimatise to the cold slowly so I’ll stream it live.

Tomorrow Tesco man will be coming to restock our food, then Sunday we’ll go round to our sons house to take a few holiday gifts.

What’s everyone else doing or have done this weekend?

I know he supports the "other side" but it's an important read on cancer

You know what to do - get your predictions in by 3pm on Saturday and remember your joker. Good luck!

Blackburn Rovers v Stoke City

Middlesbrough v Bristol City

Blackpool v Oxford United

Reading v Charlton Athletic

Swindon Town v Salford City

Walsall v Newport County

Altrincham v Rochdale

Boreham Wood v Maidenhead United

Social media saying that Notts are close to signing  6 ft 4 ins Gambian forward Alassana Jatta.

Would he be a good capture?

Defensive nightmares

1st Gill goal Really unfair to blame Warner when Baldwin is caught not marking

2nd Gill goal Baldwin again not marking

3rd Gill goal...player comes back from offside position in front of Stone?

I haven't witnessed much success for Notts, but under the Reedtz, we finally resemble a club striving to progress, thanks to hard work behind the scenes. So, why can't some fans just be content? Why the rush for promotion this season when we're on the right track? Why scrutinize some players more than those making zero effort? I might be too young to grasp this, but I felt more hope when we were relegated from L2. It seems backward and odd. I dislike going on social media to read fans criticizing the players. It's unjust when the club is striving to be its best. Do we just have some terrible fans, or is it football in general? Stuart Maynard deserves a chance, and those always complaining about the players should hold off until the season concludes.

I didn’t realise so far how badly we’ve fared against the current top 10 this season. We’ve played 12 games against the current top 10 and we’ve won 1, Gillingham away. We’ve drawn with MK once and Barrow twice. The rest we’ve lost. So that’s a current record of PL 12 W 1 D 3 L 8.

Do you think it will improve in the coming weeks? We’ve only got Wrexham to play away from the current 10 and the other 5 remaining games are all at Meadow Lane. Or are you bit worried that the losses will slowly pile up, are the good teams in league 2 this season just too good for us?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13052227/The-35s-World-Cup-coming-Mail-Sport-dives-squads-Ronaldinho-Frank-Lampard-Thierry-Henry-Kaka-set-grace-English-turf-summer-football-festival.html

IFAB are at it again. Personally, I don't think this rule introduction will benefit the game at all. I understand what they're trying to implement but I don't think it's going to work and I can see there being a lot of controversy when it comes into effect. 

They've already changed and introduced rules that has made the beautiful game we all love confusing hence why there's a lot of talk in punditry regarding "the letter of the law" like handball and offsides. 

American food standards?

Starting from today these rules have come in to place for Goalkeepers during penalty shootouts. 

Is it really necessary to make these changes? I mean penalty shootouts are a psychological battle and goalkeepers do whatever they can to win that battle and save the penalty. Especially the part where they say "distract the Taker". Surely that's all part of the battle?

But what about the people taking penalties? Will they put in rules that stop them using tactics like stuttering run ups or feinting to shoot? 

This could potentially lead to long penalty shootouts. But also what happens if a GK does any of these? Red Card? Yellow Card? 

What do you guys think to this? 

You've won a prize of a weekend getaway but you have to choose 3 people involved in football, past or present, to join you. Which 3 are you choosing?

I'd go with Neil Warnock, Peter Crouch and Gazza. All 3 are characters in their own way. It might be a little chaotic at times but it'll be an absolute laugh. 

Watching YouTube, a video from 'Magpie Goals' came on, and it was highlights from the 1994 game against us and Nottingham Forest.

It mentioned how we had signed a player (Colin Foster) unfamiliar to me on an extended loan for another month from West Ham. He was described as 'a tower of strength in the magpies defence'. The loan move suggested that we were trying to raise funds to sign him permanently for around £175,000. I assume we didn't manage to raise the funds? I'm not sure if Mick Walker lasted much longer beyond this point - not without fact checking.

So, as a talking point - what memories do you have of this? Did you think Notts should have signed Foster?

I am very interested to read everyone's thoughts, as I recall how important this season were for us, but I would have been too young to know all the inner stuff a regular attending fan would know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Foster

Have you missed me? What, no? Why not? 

We had a good flight here on Monday although my ears blocked up and took a day or so to clear, does anyone else suffer like that on flights? Hopefully we kept the plane reasonably tidy for @Fozzy who was on his way home on the same plane.

Spoiler alert! I am about to make you extremely jealous so don’t read on if you are of a sensitive nature.

The weather is amazing wall to wall sunshine with temperatures hovering around 22-25 degrees during the day. We are in an all inclusive hotel with great food and drink on offer all day so I will return  about two stone heavier. 

On checking the forum I see that my mate (adversary) @super_ram has overtaken me on the prediction league, that will never do, I shall have to sort that out asap, we can’t let him get too big for his boots. 

Well that is all for now fellow PoN forumites, I’ll just leave you with a couple of pics to warm you up.

Whenever this question crops up, I have a go to that I always use.

John Stones scored more World Cup goals in 1 game (2 v Panama in 2018) than Wayne Rooney did in 3 World Cups. 

Over to you guys!

Stone 6.5 - a couple of decent saves, no chance with the winner.
Warner 6 - a mix of good and dodgy moments. Showed promise, he will have easier games than this.
Baldwin 8* - plenty of good headers and blocks, held us together at the back.
Cameron 6 - did ok, fairly standard game.
Nemane 5.5 - decent first half, didn't do a lot in the second.
Robertson 7 - got stuck in and used the ball well, looks a useful recruit.
Bostock 5.5 - not awful, but nowhere near the player he can be.
Cowley 5.5 - another who didn't reach the levels he is capable of.
Jones 7 - scared them, but got no protection from the ref. Should have done better with his second half opportunities.
McGoldrick 7 - not everything came off, but still our most likely scoring threat.
Langstaff 5.5 - lacked service, but didn't make enough of his time on the ball. I'll be interested to see a replay of the penalty shout.

Austin n/a

Could have, should have, but didn't. Not the usual disaster at their hovel, but still massively disappointing. We did enough to earn a point at least, but luck and the ref weren't on our side.  I can understand the lack of subs because we didn't have a lot of attacking options on the bench. A playoff place is still in our hands, but we need to put a good run together quickly.

Notts C 2 v Middlesbrough 0

at Trent Bridge 1902. Notts won but you don't see anything of the match, just the cheering crowd, however it is great history footage, demonstrating that supporters who loved their club then were just as passionate as they are now 122 years later.