menzinho

A close match, but one where nothing fell in our favour. First half played out as expected, but second half we created the first big chance and Grant should’ve put us 1-0 up. Can’t help but a feel a tad sorry for him because apart from his awful finishing he put in a pretty good performance. I think Jatta’s red is harsh, he’s being pulled back which kind of forces him to lunge in. Having now watched it back the challenge looks a lot worse than was, he didn’t make any contact. I feel like I’ve seen worse challenges than that this season not even receive a card. No idea how the appeals work but if they take what happened after into account it won’t get rescinded. We edged it performance wise and in terms of creating the better chances, probably should’ve been us with the 1-0 win and that’s pretty gutting.

I do think we’ll need to change something going into this match as we have been really poor at home recently. I would like to see Jodi and Jarvis play as proper wide attackers but that would require a switch to a back 4 and I’m not expecting it to change that drastically. I think we’ll play ultra-safe, I can see Austin coming in at RWB in place of Gordon. Jatta upfront with Didzy and Grant behind. The rest of the team will be the usual, falling into a 5-2-2-1 more often than not. Genuinely I’ll be impressed if one team manages 3 goals over the two legs. It’s got a 1-0, 1-1 vibe all over it for me. I’m almost 99% certain we won’t score in the first half, I don’t bet but I feel like I should (please prove me wrong here Notts!) That said I’d love us to start in a manner that really gets us fans going, trying to pin them in, pressing high and playing balls to get them to defend. I’ve not seen us play like that for a long time… I think if we recycle the ball too much and worry too much about possession it will frustrate the crowd and encourage the Dons.

I am trying to not be totally negative, but after our recent performances where we’ve only managed to beat the poorer teams in the league and then struggled against everyone else at home these past few months, it’s hard see a complete turn-around of fortunes in 6 days. I know Wimbledon aren’t in great form either, but they did draw with both Doncaster and Chesterfield away recently. The Bradford match is my flicker of hope, but that still shows us how much we rely on Didzy… Someone did remind me today that we don’t technically have to win any of our matches, we could draw all 3 but then win 2 on a penalty shoot-out! Can we get Archie Mair back on a 2-match deal?! 😆

Even though it didn't turn out as he would've hoped it does sound sound like everything at Swansea wasn't as rosy as it was made out to be. He still got to be the head coach of a Championship club and test himself against other better coaches and work with some top players so he'll have a learnt a lot from his time there. I don’t think the door is totally closed to him returning to us in the future, this is a head coach that left us in 5th and we got a lot of money for. I wonder if the fact he is doing nothing might be giving the brothers a few pressing thoughts… I would say Bristol Rovers would seem like a possible next job as he lives in South Wales but they are seemingly a bit of basket-case club too. I think he was spoilt with how well run we are!

Even though Salford fell at the last hurdle, I’m still not that confident. It does feel like our undoing in the play-offs will be that we will have to play a team that also finished in the play-offs and not one that finished 19th. And now we’ve got the issue of not being able to win at home right now. My expectations are so low I don’t I don’t think I can be disappointed because losing to Wimbledon over two legs feels like the most probable outcome. We scraped past them at home with a 1-0 win scoring from a corner, I can’t remember anything else about that match so it can’t have been a thriller. And then away they comfortably beat us 2-0. I’d argue they are a slightly better team than us as against the rest of the top 7 they have 3 wins and 4 draws, we have 2 wins and 3 draws…

Not a tough one today, sadly. Abbott for me too.

There is something so gutting about seeing a winner’s podium being erected at our home stadium but it being for the opposition. Fair play to Donny and congrats on winning the league, a really good end to the season for them. Hard to believe that only 6 matches ago we were 2 points behind them… I’m just so discouraged that in a big match where we packed out Meadow Lane we put in another really poor performance. First half was particularly bad, not just because we conceded two goals but because I could not believe our only way to attack was to get the ball out to Gordon so he could put in a hopeful cross. What has happened to all our inventive attacking play?

Bolton Wanderers 2-0 Stevenage Mansfield Town 2-1 Exeter City Northampton Town 0-1 Wigan Athletic Wycombe Wanderers 1-2 Stockport County Colchester United 1-0 Barrow 🤡 Crewe Alexandra 2-0 Walsall Grimsby Town 1-1 AFC Wimbledon Newport County 0-0 Tranmere Rovers

I'm not sure if playing Doncaster after they've been promoted gives us much of an edge now. There's no pressure on them, they have got the title to play for but it's not a disaster if they don't win it. Part of me thinks if they were still going for promotion they'd be a lot more nervous and cautious. I'm hoping it's not going to be like when Stockport turned up just after they secured promotion last season 😬 And we've only won 1 from our last 6 home matches and that 1 win was against a really poor MK side, Doncaster are a lot better and I believe they have the best away record too, eeek! I know autos are still a faint possibility but we've got the toughest match by far, a lot will have to fall in our favour. I just want to see a good performance really. I think the play-offs are the most likely outcome so it would be nice if we can go into them off the back of an encouraging result.

Right now if we were to get promoted, I wouldn’t feel particularly confident about next season. My biggest concern is how the majority of our points from this season have been gained against teams in the bottom half of the table, we won’t get that luxury in League 1. In my opinion it would mean we would be relying heavily on the summer recruitment to be spot on. We would need another top striker, another top number 10, another top midfielder and another top centre back… As a minimum. Our recruitment is generally very good but to add several key players all in one go would be a challenge. Wrexham and Stockport are a bit of an anomaly for me, particularly Wrexham, but both have spent money only we could dream of. I think we'd be fine in terms of a decent budget though, our average attendance right now would see us as the 8th highest in League 1 (And this would increase even more if we were to be promoted). I think we can take a bit of hope from Crawley though, they did a lot better than I thought given they had their team dismantled prior to the start of the season. I don’t think we would be in a scenario anywhere like that, if we don't lose any key players it's easier to build on. The four relegation spots in League 1 are a killer though, especially right now as it’s such a strong league. If we went up and someone somehow was able to offer us 20th position, I’d 100% take it.

They have pretty much carried the team in terms of goal-scoring this season. Jodi despite barely playing all season is our 3rd top scorer with 5... That's quite a drop off. Whatever league we are in next season we do need other players to step up a bit when it comes to putting the ball into the back of the net.

I’m also desperately hoping Salford don’t finish in the play-offs, I’ll dread that fixture if it happens. They’ve just got us completely figured; we’d need to change it up if we are to face them again. I am starting wonder if that FA Cup loss a few years back has given us some sort of deep-rooted scaring... The potential Bradford, Wimbledon & Walsall matches all feel like pretty drab affairs in which one team wins by a goal. Grimsby have the worst defence out of all the teams that can qualify, that would do for me.

Be funny if that goal didn’t win our goal of the season (I think it will though). Our shortlist will basically be a Didzy show-reel with Abbott’s Accrington and Cheltenham goals. I think he can count himself a tad unfortunate not to win League 2's Young Player of the Season. Now, I’m not dissing Nathan Lowe who is a great player, but surely the winner should be a player who has actually played the whole season in League 2 🤷‍♂️

I still can’t quite believe we’ve got a chance of being automatically promoted, it doesn’t feel like it should be possible. I’ve never seen so many loses from so many of the top sides, there’s usually 1 or 2 that stumble at the end of the season but not 5 or 6! I actually wouldn’t be that surprised if Bradford, Notts & Walsall all lost this weekend. Bradford would celebrate losing their way to promotion and it would be a fitting tribute to this season’s promotion race. If a team did get promoted with 75 points it would be the joint lowest total since three automatic spots were awarded. Lincoln finished 3rd with 75 points in the 1997/98 season (and then got relegated the season after).

That's us basically confirmed for the play-offs now, Grimsby and Wimbledon play each other on the final day and our goal-difference means Colchester won't overtake us. Looking forward to watching the highlights later!

It's sounded like a much better second half from us, surely that's the three points secured now!

Hull City 1-2 Derby County Preston North End 1-1 Plymouth Argyle Burton Albion 3-1 Cambridge United Crawley Town 1-2 Northampton Town Fleetwood Town 2-0 Newport County 🤡 Salford City 0-1 Colchester United Boston United 2-2 Gateshead Forest Green Rovers 2-0 Oldham Athletic

It could be worse than 1-1 so I'll take that, got to improve second half though.

Slightly surprised we've only made the one change to be honest, still I'm hoping that team can get the three points. I'm just glad when they said the match was delayed for an injury it wasn't for one of our players, our luck is turning!

Doncaster are basically promoted now, they’ve got a 4 point gap over 4th place Walsall who now haven’t won in 12 matches! It’s extremely unlikely they will win their last 2. I actually hope their promotion is confirmed this weekend, it might give us more of a chance against them!

I am slightly worried that we have a bit issue when it comes to playing at home under Stuart... Overall in his 33 matches the results have been as follows; W13 D7 L13. Last season we only won 3 matches from 11 at home under Stuart. This season we’ve won 10 from 22, but 6 of these wins have been against the current bottom 7 in the league, we’ve then only managed 4 wins against the rest of the league! (1st-17th!). That’s not good and right now we are currently 20th in the home form table which measures the last 8 matches. For the majority of Notts fans, this is where we see the team play more often. I’ve always thought generally fans are more lenient if your home form is solid but away form is patchy, but for us under Stuart it’s been the other way round. So now it's starting to put him under a bit of pressure... Is it just me or do you think our home form is becoming a major issue?

Honestly I feel like I could write an essay on that match, there's so much to cover, but I'll spare you all! It is just incredibly disappointing and frustrating, Cheltenham in the first half were just time wasting but I don't feel we ever did enough to trouble them. We scored because they made a massive mistake. 100% credit to Jatta for be alive and sharp, but we didn't create a clear-cut chance until Bedeau headed against the post late in the second half. And that was from a set-piece, like most our chances, in open play for all the ball we didn't threaten them enough. Even when they pushed forward and left a lot of space at the back we had no idea how to exploit it. I think some extra subs and earlier wouldn't have gone a miss either, by the 60th minute they had 4 fresh pairs of legs on the pitch but we failed to react. I don't know why our central midfielders are un-sub-able. It's a key area of the pitch, but we never change it. I think Palmer and Abbott are great but they had both just played 90 minutes against Bradford, they were tiring, surely Hinchy/Edwards would've been better?!

Well now that Bass is back this must go down as one of the most pointless signings ever. I can't believe we signed him just in-case Slocombe got injured, the chances of that happening were so slim but even if did happen we could’ve then loaned in an emergency keeper... I feel like we’ve just wasted money and Tyler’s time here…

So with just the two matches remaining now we have made this a lot harder than it should’ve been! Crewe are all but done, they could still make the play-offs but it’s extremely unlikely. Chesterfield can only get to 70, but they have favourable fixtures in Morecambe and Accrington. Salford play Colchester next and Grimsby are away at MK... We simply have to win against Harrogate because Doncaster at home will not be easy. If we scrape over the line, it’s going to be quite possibly the most bizarre play-offs for a while as no-one will be in good form or have much confidence they can win them.

I think we can finally put our automatic dreams to bed now. From those 16 matches that were initially posted we've picked up just 16 points (with 2 still to play) and we’ve only won 2 of our last 8, it’s quite amazing it’s remained a possibility for so long but it was always looking less and less likely...