Think Iorpenda was the only serious contender tbh. He persevered, gives you 90 mins of effort and there were glimpses of quality.

After the opening 25 mins or so few, if any others offered much (Palmer, maybe?) until Bennetts and Tangen appeared.

Collectively poor but too many blatant individual errors. Very bad night for Bedeau, Ness, Tsaroulla, Norburn and Jatta!

I agree with others. I thought Tom Iorpenda was far above anyone else. Its concerning that our senior players failed to step up to the plate especially when Norburn was dismissed.

Thanks to all who took the time to vote. Much appreciated.

Tom Iorpenda has been voted the Pride of Nottingham's Man of the Match against Oldham. He well on his way to getting the most PON Mon of the Match Gongs this season.

Welcome from me too @ted beardsall I hope you enjoy being a member of our friendly community.

Welcome on board @ted beardsall may you enjoy the comradery and togetherness of the PON community. Believe in the Ferret. 🐾

Welcome from me too @Peter Craddock you’ll find we are a friendly community so dive right in and enjoy.

@Peter Craddock a jolly good welcome to our wonderful community of fanatical fans, from me and Freddie the Ferret. 🐾

"Younger fans seem to care less about the value of fan ownership and want the club to find deep-pocketed owners to join the EFL arms race."

"At a packed meeting with the club’s board in February, fans were given sobering numbers about Wimbledon’s future. Their annual losses are about £2million — £4million less than the League One average, and £16million less than the highest."

"A significant part of the English football pyramid is in a precarious position. Wage inflation — rising by about 80 per cent in two years in League One"

Maybe the Oldham result (and one or two others actually) suggest we should re-think our recruitment strategy. To get out of league two it seems you need strong physical players with pace. Then when promoted add the more technical players as you climb the leagues.

I think had we lost 3-0 with 11 players on the pitch I’d be more concerned. Their wasn't much between the sides first half, both teams had good spells. For me we clearly tried to make positive changes at half-time by bringing on Ndluvo, but we didn't get to see if it worked because after 2 minutes we were suddenly one midfielder short and had an excess of forwards.

In hindsight we should’ve subbed off Norburn at half-time, of course it’s very easy to say all this after and it doesn’t help we basically only have 3 natural CM’s now and all of them were already playing! Maybe in future matches if Norburn is on a yellow he will be subbed off because he can’t be trusted to not do something stupid.

The biggest issue for me was how both goals came from our set-pieces. Are we committing too many players forward? Do we need to leave another player back? Maybe against teams like Oldham we do because if we stop their counter attacks, we make them a lot less dangerous…

31 minutes ago, menzinho said:

In hindsight we should’ve subbed off Norburn at half-time, of course it’s very easy to say all this after and it doesn’t help we basically only have 3 natural CM’s now and all of them were already playing! Maybe in future matches if Norburn is on a yellow he will be subbed off because he can’t be trusted to not do something stupid.

I was posting to do this on the match thread 😎 @menzinho I saw it a mile off.

It would have occurred to MP too, he botched that one. Norburn wasn't playing well either and we weren't making an impact either, despite chasing the game from very early on. Two other reasons to make that particular change.

Palmer was superb against Accy and Cheltenham. Let him run the show and put a true box-to-box player next to him (we certainly have one)

That's a massive blow for Notts with Matty Platt already out for the rest of the season.

Macari, Platt, Bedeau, & McDonald had a great understanding together. I'm not sure if Macari, Bedeau & Ness have the same. And we now only have young Browne as cover for any other injury that might happen to one of those three senior defenders.

Losing Platt and now McDonald is going to make ending the season strongly that bit harder. Ness did have a little spell earlier in the season playing in the middle when both Platt and McDonald were out. It’s probably not a bad thing he messed up his back pass in a match that was already lost, I suspect that’ll stop him from doing it for the rest of the season now! Just got to hope he can step up (and not injure himself in doing so).

It’s also very quiet regarding Robertson, which makes me think it's not good news about him either.

It's a terrible blow. Ness is a decent footballer though - he needs confidence and to find the leader inside of him.

MP likes his extra insurance, but without Norburn for the next two games (could be a blessing) he has no other option but to copy what he did at Accy.

Palmer running the show, the threat of Iorpenda surging from deep, 2 dangerous WBs, 2 players around Jatta. Let's take it to the opposition starting at Harrogate.

It's the only way now, we don't want to invite teams on to us.

Our lack of discipline is going to cost us an automatic promotion place. With the injuries starting to pile up too, it's a big headache for Martin Paterson.

I think Norburn might have a two game ban instead of just the one game due to his 2nd red card of the season.

Notts have been accused of not being physical enough which has cost us in recent seasons, but lack of discipline is different to showing physicality in games. It's just a self inflicted wound.

Notts are in fourth place in the League 2 Poor discipline league.

English League Two Discipline Stats, 2025-26 Season - ESPN (UK) https://share.google/nu5d07BUpk8me2n8W

There is mitigation in some cases @YoopEyes, Ndlovu's red was debatable and you're always going to pick up yellows due to the nature of this league. If you're not "up for the fight", you won't even be in the running.

Norburn's combative nature has done us good, but he's let us down twice now when every point counts. I've seen a few games now when he's been a red card waiting to happen - it's his responsibility not to be an idiot, but it's also down to MP to take him off when it's clear to everyone what's going to happen.

I mentioned that Ndlovu’s red card was ludicrous. We are a bit beyond the “unlucky” stage tho’.

The crazy element to me is that we are usually provoked or, at least, involved in mutually combative exchanges - the thuggery and dark arts that opponents utilise appears to go unpunished, for the most part. That is a result of both “cheating” and inadequate officiating in my view.

League 2 Table after the Oldham defeat.

some valid analysis from @ARLukomski

Who's been coaching who? Are we coaching them, or are they coaching us? 😂

Quality! Love the way the commentator just went ahead and gave it her best GOOOOOLLLLLLLL anyway!

@Chris I think that there is still room for someone to claim that number 10 role for Notts during the promotion run in.

I think that Jayden will give Martin more options on the bench. Martin does rate Jayden a lot, so I'm sure he's going to feature during the last 8 games & possibly the 3 playoff games if it is to be the playoffs.

To be fair, he can play out wide so there's options, and I think having someone else in those wider attacking positions will be help but I do look at our squad and wonder how he will get game time.

It's a question for Martin Paterson not me, and naturally Jayden Luker needs to take whatever chances come his way.

I already accepted that the No10 conundrum, if it's going to be solved at all, will be solved by committee, and he's one more for the committee!

Step by step I guess. As Chris says game time may be limited so he will have to try to shine in sub appearances and take it from there. We absolutely can't take chances or allow someone to rebuild their game in these 8 cup finals we have left .... Autos is one or two slip ups out of our grasp, and play-offs is 75% failure

Iorpenda, hat tip to Palmer too

i wished conor grant had shown the spark he did against accrington but i think he was pretty quiet, most of the players did very well and i think my choice would be between jodi jones and tom iorpenda but i have gone with who i felt played brilliantly throughout.

The poll has now closed. Thank you to all who voted. I'm pleased to announce that Tom Iorpenda, by an overwhelming majority, has been voted the Pride of Nottingham's Man of the Match v Cheltenham. Well done Tom.

Charlton Athletic 1-2 Norwich City

Queens Park Rangers 2-0 Portsmouth

Stevenage 0-2 Reading

Wigan Athletic 1-0 Exeter City 🃏

Accrington Stanley 1-3 Chesterfield

Shrewsbury Town 1-1 Crewe Alexandra

Altrincham 0-2 Southend United

Yeovil Town 1-1 Morecambe

No Freddie the Ferret again as he is still boating in this beautiful weather.

Charlton Athletic 1 v 2 Norwich City

QPR 1 v 1 Portsmouth

Stevenage 2 v 1 Reading

Wigan Athletic 3 v 0 Exeter City

Accrington Stanley 2 v 2 Chesterfield

Shrewsbury Town1 v 0 Crewe Alexandra

Altrincham 0 v 0 Southend United

Yeovil Town 3 v 1 Morecambe

With or without Freddie we do the business. 😁

The results:

Charlton Athletic 0-1 Norwich City
QPR 6-1 Portsmouth
Stevenage 1-0 Reading
Wigan Athletic 2-0 Exeter City
Accrington Stanley 0-1 Chesterfield
Shrewsbury Town 0-4 Crewe Alexandra
Altrincham 1-0 Southend United
Yeovil Town 3-2 Morecambe

@super_ram claims the (imaginary) prize this week!

There's little change overall, with @william1984 still leading the way...

The next round is on Saturday, so keep your eyes peeled here for the fixtures on Wednesday. Thanks for playing, see you all then

The issue for me with how Cheltenham played was always about if they could maintain their start, as they did seem very well organised. I think they were better in spells, collectively as a team but never overall in the first half. It was a good first half, against two attacking minded teams but they fell apart due to themselves. Their goals were well-made, but from a Notts view, they were very frustrating.

Second half, Notts did show a lot more of themselves, and even without the red card we would have won. It might have made them a bit more competitive but they were always looking like their energy levels were dropping.

Steve Cotterill is a bit of a moron; there's some valid points but he's that typical 90s whining manager.

There's a lot of credit to be given to how Cheltenham started, but at the same time you are wearing tinted glasses if you cannot accept that Notts were the better team. If you have to look for excuses, and justify them, then as a manager you know you aren't being completely honest. Referees may give advantage at times to teams, but the sending off was coming at a time where Cheltenham were just throwing silly challenges.

If you defend by trying to take out the opposition like that, then you have to blame yourself and expect what might come. You can't pin it down to the official, nor can you gloss over how good the opposition team played when things clicked. We are a very good team when that happens, even at our worst we are. We are fully capable of dismentling teams, so it would be like me avoiding credit to them just because how easy we made the second half look.

cheltenhams second goal, their player had all the time in the world and both of their goals were poor marking decisons. some fans made comments about james belshaw not reacting but what could he have done? Maybe he could have done something with the second goal but the first happened quickly. he made some very good instinctive decisions to claim loose balls i thought he did well despite them coming back into the game.

notts always looks better in the second half, there was calmness about the play and it was very entertaining to see us attack.

On 25/01/2026 at 20:21, liampie said:

i am not adding this to be negative but i thought straight away, here is the new junior morias.

Definitely, in the sense that it's insurance for the second half of a promotion bid.

Say we keep Jatta, but he got injured....we absolutely have to have a physical presence at both ends of the pitch. I wouldn't like to see us in play-off semis against Salford or Cambridge say, and we get bullied and wimp out like last season.

Apart from that there's not much similarity, different style, age, length of contract. He's got a season and a half to prove himself and make a contribution.. He may only get about 6 goals across that time and still be popular and a good signing.

On 27/01/2026 at 10:16, Mapperley Pie said:

Agree @McPie . Just listened to his interview and he comes across very well. Very clear of his role and how he would fit in. An old fashioned Division 4 forward 🤔.

Yeah, I think the new signings and his signing in particular will be a boost and I really fancy us to win well today.

He seems very positive and the way he spoke about Notts County made us sound like the place to be. Would all the players watch that interview? His enthusiasm about joining County could give an extra boost to the positivity and pride in wearing the shirt.

On 31/01/2026 at 05:28, theAnticlough said:

Definitely, in the sense that it's insurance for the second half of a promotion bid.

Say we keep Jatta, but he got injured....we absolutely have to have a physical presence at both ends of the pitch. I wouldn't like to see us in play-off semis against Salford or Cambridge say, and we get bullied and wimp out like last season.

Apart from that there's not much similarity, different style, age, length of contract. He's got a season and a half to prove himself and make a contribution.. He may only get about 6 goals across that time and still be popular and a good signing.

i think my concerns have been addressed, as he looks fully capable and i think if he was here at the start of the season he would be fighting matt dennis to be our highest goal scorer and jatta of course.

And with it I’ve changed mine, Aiways found it weird i was tagged as my name and not a user name. Thus arise Paris Sandwich Man

12 minutes ago, Paris Sandwich Man said:

And with it I’ve changed mine, Aiways found it weird i was tagged as my name and not a user name. Thus arise Paris Sandwich Man

Interesting choice! Are you actually a sandwich man in Paris?

No, I misheard Paris Saint Germain on radio, was sure he said Paris Sandwich Man, couldn’t get it out my head.😂😂

Watford 2 v Wrexham 1

Luton 2 v Exeter 0

Plymouth 1 v Stevenage 1

Bristol Rvrs 1 v Shrewsbury 3

Tranmere 2 v Harrogate 1 jkr

Walsall 2 v Cambridge 2

Southend 1 v Rochdale 1

Woking 2 v Yeovil 1

Watford 1-1 Wrexham

Luton Town 3-1 Exeter City

Plymouth Argyle 2-0 Stevenage 🃏

Bristol Rovers 1-0 Shrewsbury Town

Tranmere Rovers 0-1 Harrogate Town

Walsall 1-2 Cambridge United

Southend United 2-2 Rochdale

Woking 1-0 Yeovil Town

Tuesday's results:

Watford 3-1 Wrexham
Luton Town 3-2 Exeter City
Plymouth Argyle 1-0 Stevenage
Bristol Rovers 1-0 Shrewsbury Town
Tranmere Rovers 0-3 Harrogate Town
Walsall 0-0 Cambridge United
Southend United 3-2 Rochdale
Woking 1-0 Yeovil Town

Congratulations to @menzinho for winning this round!

@william1984 still leads overall, while @super_ram moves back up into third:

So that's Tuesday's round done; I'll count the scores for yesterday's round in the next couple of days. Thanks for playing!

@Fan of Big Tone a really memorable day with my family was a shortish stay at Reighton Sands and walking the full beach to Filey and back again. Longer that it looks, many steps in it for you, probably 1 hour there, 1 hour back.

The Flamborough Head cliff top walks too - we were lucky enough to see seals enjoying the shallows from up there.

It's time I checked in again... I had a few days in the UK seeing family and attending a funeral, but unfortunately missing out on yesterday's win. I brought a slight cold back with me, although it seems to be waning now.

On 20/03/2026 at 12:09, Robbie said:

The price at the Tesco Garage was £1:57. The price has gone up & it is expected to go higher.

It's €2.10 for unleaded here. Next time we come over we might bring the car for some "cheap" petrol!

To add to your musings about driving lessons, I was taught by a man called Steve, who had nerves of steel. It took me two years to be ready for my test, but I passed first time. I took the test in a clapped-out Fiesta and was alarmed when, after stopping on a hill for a hill start, the car started creeping downhill despite the handbrake being on! Luckily it didn't count against me and the car has probably long been turned into cans of Vimto.

@StarkMallard That's about £1:82 in Pounds & pence for unleaded. I'm surprised it's more than the UK with fuel tax & VAT adding to the cost here, but I suppose the cost of living is a little higher there. Unfortunately, it looks like diesel & unleaded will go higher across Europe the way things are going.

I've seen the estimates from that website before. I have no idea what they're based on, but the clubs near the top are the ones I was expecting.

The numbers are fantastical though. If Barrow are spending 4 million on players' wages then I'm Michael Sheen.

MK and Bristol being top isn’t surprising because they are both owned by very rich families from the middle east. I’d have thought just given the size of us, we’d have been in the top 10. I know Chris and Alex have always said that we operate in a way where we want to out-perform our playing budget, but just given how we turnover more money than most teams in League 2 I'd still expect us to be top-half in terms of budgets. 🤔🤷‍♂️

Barrow is an interesting one, having done a bit of digging one of their owners used to be the CEO of a company that is allegedly worth billions, so I’d imagine he isn’t short of money. They’ve also got some players like Tom Barkhuizen, Ben Jackson & Connor Mahoney that played in the Championship before joining Barrow so they will all be on decent wages. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were spending more than what most might think.

If Notts go up, they will have to spend more money on football operations. The wage bill will go up, & they will need new players to compete in League One. Even if they don't go up, Football expenses will increase. It will be fascinating to see if the Club will increase Season Ticket prices for next season.

Norwich City 2-0 Preston North End (Joker)

Stoke City 1-0 Watford

Doncaster Rovers 2-1 Blackpool

Northampton Town 0-1 Burton Albion

Crewe Alexandra 2-1 Walsall

Shrewsbury Town 2-0 Cheltenham Town

Boston United 1-1 Yeovil Town

Southend United 1-1 Forest Green Rovers

Norwich City 1-0 Preston North End

Stoke City 0-1 Watford

Doncaster Rovers 0-0 Blackpool

Northampton Town 0-1 Burton Albion

Crewe Alexandra 2-0 Walsall (Joker)

Shrewsbury Town 2-1 Cheltenham Town

Boston United 1-1 Yeovil Town

Southend United 01-1 Forest Green Rovers

Apologies for the delay, I've been away for a few days. But better late than never! Here are the scores from last Saturday:

Norwich City 2-0 Preston North End
Stoke City 3-1 Watford
Doncaster Rovers 2-1 Blackpool
Northampton Town 0-2 Burton Albion
Crewe Alexandra 0-3 Walsall
Shrewsbury Town 0-2 Cheltenham Town
Boston United 2-1 Yeovil Town
Southend United 2-0 Forest Green Rovers

In the first round with my new user name, I've broken my duck (oh ho ho) with 14 points, followed by @ARLukomski with 11!

Overall, @william1984 still leads, but @magpiejue has cut the lead to six points...

I'll count and post Tuesday's points at some point during the weekend, and of course Saturday's round is live. Thanks for playing (and for bearing with me)!