I’m not sure what the rules are about fielding first team players but if I was Luke Williams I’d put out a team of fringe/youth players, this is a game we could really do without, I know Williams says he wants to win every match but I would gladly see us lose this one.

On 29/10/2023 at 10:29, DangerousSausage said:

Fine lines. The visitors really couldn't have complained if we'd gone in ahead at half time - if Langstaff or Jones had scored, we'd have won and everyone would've been singing their praises. Uncharacteristically for us, we didn't take our chances. Wrexham are always good for a goal or two, and so we got punished.

A few things did annoy me. In the second half we took a succession of short corners that we ended up passing back to our keeper. And, like against Mansfield, the concession of one (unlucky) goal was quickly followed by another and we suddenly had a mountain to climb. The collapses are becoming a bit of a habit and are causing us to lose games we could have drawn. The lack of cover is also a concern.

All the same, the performance wasn't bad and the team don't deserve some of the criticism they're getting. We've come through a difficult month with ten points from six games. If we're serious about maintaining a promotion challenge, we shouldn't be making a habit of getting beaten at home by our rivals. All the same, we don't need to turn into a long ball team, we shouldn't sack our recruitment team and we didn't have a disastrous transfer window. Honestly, the way some of our fans react to a minor setback, it makes me wonder how they manage to navigate through life.

To sum up, we just have to dust ourselves down and go again. 

A very balanced and sensible criticism @DangerousSausage.From what I saw in the highlights ,a case of 'on another day'

I think we need to mix things up a bit.  I don't have a problem with the short corners, but not all the time.  We don't have the height to launch it into the centre, but there are other options other than the short pass.  At the end they stuck 3 / 4 men about 7 yards from the corner and immediately pressured the receiver, and the next man forcing us back to Slocombe. Occasionally putting one long or to the edge of the box would give them something else to think about and mean they couldn't commit so many men to the short corner.  Mind you, their corners were just as successful as ours resulting in 0 goals, but we often came away with the ball, so at least we retained possession, but ....

When we attacked we did so exclusively down the wings. Wrexham doubled up on Nemane and sometimes had 3 on Jones, which restricted their effectiveness.  I think it was a reflection of how good Jones is that he still caused so many issues.   The trouble was that when things came to a halt on one wing the ball was recycled back through the midfield, defence and on to the other wing.  Wrexham simply drifted their defence from one wing to the other.  There was soooo much space in the centre but we never exploited it, we simply continued our pattern of switching wing to wing.  This meant Wrexham moved their central defence out to support the full backs and double up on our wingers without fear of being exposed in the centre.  Sometimes they were moving in anticipation of the move stalling on one wing, and leaving huge gaps.  They sort of formed a dome around their penalty box and allowed us to pass around the top of it, knowing we were never going to make a move through the centre.  I think we missed Ruben for once, who would see the gap and have the confidence to exploit it. Crowley and McGoldrick didn't do that as they were tracking over to help the wingers... because they were under pressure and needed 'an out' because Wrexham didn't need to commit to the centre.  Against Gillingham, Macari exploited the gap when it appeared, but nobody seemed to want to take the risk this time.

My last point was that Wrexham were more prepared to take a shot and take a chance that something would come of it.  We seemed to want to score the perfect goal,  Their approach led to the deflection and indirectly the second goal (I maintain if thy hadn't scored the first they wouldn't have got the second). Sometimes, it's worth losing possession to give the opposition something else to think about, or roll the dice to see if something different happens.  

All that said, it was a good game between 2 closely matched teams.  we will both be there or thereabouts at the end of the season. I thought our defence was largely sound and Solcombe was excellent. We were let down by those up front, but nothing to get despondent about.  We are still learning and we will improve.  If we can learn the lesson and be a little less predictable as a result of this experience then I can see us being right up there.

I read all the comments here whilst I was away and, I looked at the score updates - feeling like 0-0 could actually be a Sometimes, what appears to be a negative situation can actually turn out to be a Sometimes, what seems like a misfortune can actually be a stroke of luck. Then we were 1-0, quickly 2-0 and I thought it was obvious when we get pushed, we lack a defender who is of the mould of Mike Edwards.

I've felt this a few times, but none of our defenders offer the level of awareness, communication, organisation that he offered.

In January, I would hope that Notts can find a defender who offers everything outlined but as for the result. We'll go again; this season is going to see us have results like this, and we need to avoid knee-jerk reactions that linger on.

As for the video, so much waffle that makes it incredibly boring to listen too. It's a shame because there's some valid and interesting comments, but it's got that irritant which comes from people who are trying to force humour and failing miserably. Also, I think the overall performance and teams were better in the National League. Poor teams stand out by miles in this league, but it is a valid point that most do look like they deserve to be here.