menzinho

All the media and interviews coming from Notts this week has been very positive, I think (hoping) the players will want to prove a point that it doesn’t matter who’s in charge, they are good enough to do well at this level. Jim’s got a slightly tougher job picking the team, after the short break we should have more players available, surely we can’t have picked up anymore injuries! The real issue for Jim is can he justify picking himself ???? No idea if the new keeper will be straight in, I guess Tom Weal will guide him there. I think the experienced pros are more likely to get the nod, maybe even Rawlinson back in for this game? And I’m hoping to see Robertson at some stage too. David Artell hasn’t really changed Grimsby’s form too much, only achieving 2 wins from his first 8 games. They did just get drubbed 6-1 by Walsall at home in their last game, but like us they’ve had an extended break too so they’ll have worked on improving things and making sure that doesn't happen again. I’m slightly more nervous about this game as we are in a slightly unknown/in-lingo period, a win would obviously be great but I’d be more than happy with a solid performance and point! (Cue drab 0-0 now LW has gone).

Yeah it's interesting the brothers clearly don't just look at win percentage, neither IB or LW had particularly great records before coming to us. I'm not too fused if the new guy is in a similar situation. The more I think about it the more I can see it being someone like Brian Barry-Murphy, in that he had 109 games in charge of a Rochdale but his record on paper doesn't look that great. However look at where Rochdale are now, they've just bombed since he left so it was clearly not a well run club he was managing at. This is the kind of thing the Bros will look into and they'll find out how he really did there. There's clearly much more to it than just win %. But it is an odd thing that some people do get hung up on. I'd imagine a lot of other owners do and wouldn't have thought much had Luke Williams applied at their club. Now they all know it was a massive missed opportunity as he was available for a couple of months before we got him! ????

Hmm, not sure this is the answer to the current GK scenario. The positive is that he played the whole season for Aldershot last season but he’s only played 7 league games out of 27 for Crawley this season. If he was really good surely, he’d have started all/most of them. We scored 6 goals past him in two games and in one of them he was caught in the middle of nowhere for Didzy’s goal... So yeah, maybe he'll do well for us, I'll judge him on our time with us.

Some other names that have featured with the betting sites that haven't been mentioned on here yet are: Ruaidhri Higgins - Current Derry City manager. Scot Lindsey - Current Crawley manager. Daniel Stendel - Former Barnsley manager and current Hannover 96 reserve team manager. Cameron Toshack - Son of John, last job was a first team coach at Leeds. And interestingly he has spent a lot of time coaching at Swansea. Matt Gill - Former player (I don't really remember him, so he clearly wasn't great) current Southampton Assistant Coach. And he took over LW role when he left Swansea for us...

I feel like the loss of LW has the potential to disrupt us a bit. I think the quicker we get a new head coach in the better. Happy for Jim to take the reigns for the meantime but I don't really expect too much from him, I'm hoping he can lead us to victory in the short-term, but it's a big job for someone to take on with limited experience and at the start of their coaching career. I still think we can finish in play-offs though. The new head coach will have a real tough start, could potentially be in for Stockport and then it's Barrow and Mansfield. In Feb we've got Wrexham and Bradford away as well as facing Crewe and Wimbledon! Looks like we'll get all the tough games out the way and should have an easier run in.

I’d be worried if it was a coach who’s come straight from an academy. It would be a massive risk, academy football isn't the same as men's competitive football. Simon Rusk was the next big thing but he didn’t work out at Stockport. And this season David Horseman at FGR really struggled. Most coaches have to start there I get that but I’d hope we’d look for someone who’s progressed into the men’s game at some point, be that as a head coach or assistant coach.

I don’t think the style or formation will change dramatically; in fact I’d be really surprised if it did and I don't want to see it change either! The Bros have finally given the club an identity and a style of play is almost expected now. It’s finally about continuation, building on the works of the previous head coach not ripping everything up and starting again. The Bros have a specific profile of head coach they’ll be looking for and it will be in the exact same mould as Ian Burchnall and Luke Williams. Gone are the days when a manager comes in and bemoans that these aren’t his players and he needs at least 2 or 3 transfer windows to get us up to scratch. The new head coach should be able to hit the ground running as these players will already match up with how he wants to play. They’ll be slight differences, every coach is different, I’m just really keen to see the high press stay as a big part of our identity! And fresh ideas around defending won't go a miss either. Also we’re so low on fit players at the moment, there’s not much you can do to change the starting 11! That said I’m looking forward to see Robertson in action, I don’t think Fleetwood’s direct style of play suited him. By all accounts he’s a player in the same mould as Bostock and Palmer, so I think he’ll fit in here perfectly.

Swansea are playing Morecambe this evening in the FA Cup! Will he be eligible to play? That could be interesting...

Genuinely thought he’d take us to League 1, maybe not straight away but we’d have got there at some point with him at the helm. Shame his last game was a loss, not the last memory you want or he deserves. The fact we’re getting a large compensation sum softens the blow. When he said he still lives in Wales it did worry me a touch that if he did get approached he could well leave us. A big pay rise too so I get why it would’ve been hard to turn down. Not going to lie but I think finding a coach as good/better than LW is a big challenge but Chris and Alex seem to know what they are doing given that our last two head coaches have effectively been “sold on”. As long as they are still here the future looks good for this club.

I don’t want to be too harsh as he suffered a really bad injury and didn’t play for a year before joining us, but he had no impact on the team on the pitch. He is (probably is - I don’t know him) a decent guy with lots of experience and a good pro for the younger players. However it just didn’t work out, we’ve got Robertson in now so I’m not surprised he’s not staying.

Now Luke has officially gone, I’ll back Stephen Bradley the current Shamrock Rovers manager. Ticks all the boxes in that they play the same style of football, press high and do it all in a 3-4-2-1 formation. And he’s done very well, you can’t fluke winning 4 Irish League titles in a row. On paper he seems perfect. I don’t think it’s too unrealistic either. It’s also the end of the season in Ireland now, and surely, he’s achieved all he can there. Just be a case of how settled is he in Ireland...

I hate all this drip-feed of developments. Just get it announced now, put us out our misery...

How much does Steve Cooper really love the city of Nottingham, he’d have had a good pay-off after being sacked… Surely that can compensate for the fact we can’t pay him £10k a week… I’m not really that inspired by anyone in the league below in terms of being at the same level as Luke Williams. Stuart Maynard is an interesting shout but the only memory I have of Stuart Maynard’s Wealdstone is how we beat them comfortably, twice. Was that just down to having superior players, surely a well-coached team would’ve done a bit better. I really don’t know, though, it’ll probably be someone I’ve never heard of! ????

I merely just reply to a lot of topics started on here but I'm glad I can contribute and share my views, it's a great site and it saves me from annoying/boring my partner!

Yeah, once it starts getting reported by actual journalists you know there’s something to it. The only glimmer of hope is that nothing has been signed yet maybe they won’t be able to agree terms… (He says desperately clutching at straws ????????) Not the start to the new year we want.

For me though the frustration is about not being able to just stay a bit more compact away from home. It's not great to concede early but it was a real blow to concede just before half-time especially having done so well to take the lead. Given we look to dominate we know we have to be switched on to deal with counter-attacks but it sounded like we really struggled with that in the second half. I think given the same team started the last 4 games in the space of about 10 days the levels were always going to drop slightly but the squad is thread bare at the moment. Particularly worrying that we had no attacking options on the bench! But James Sanderson seems light a bit of bright spark, seems to have been fast-tracked into first team so maybe we’ll see a bit more of him before the season is over. I think Tranmere have got a very good manager in Nigel Adkins too. Clearly improved them a lot since he’s come in, I’d expect them to push for the play-offs second half of the season now. A bit of break now is actually very handy for us. It’ll give us a chance to get some injured players back, Robertson a bit of time to bed in and possibly another addition too!

It’s hard to take much from a video but from the few I’ve seen he looks a lot quicker and stronger than Tipton did. He’s also actually played in the first team a couple of times too and I think he’s part of their first team squad. In an interview he did he talks about training with the first team everyday… So he’ll be coming up against the likes of Ashley Barnes and Josh Sargent whilst training with a host of internationals. I get the doubts given Tipton was effectively filling his role whilst here but he was very much a youth team player. He’d never been involved with Wolves first team nor had he ever played a professional game before. Whilst Jaden is still inexperienced, given he’s actually part of Norwich’s first team setup, I’d expect him to be a lot better.

I do think we’ve been on the end of some bad refereeing at times, but I think you ask any fan in the league and they’d say exactly the same. Think Morecambe fans won’t be too pleased with the penalty decision last night, the defender puts his arm out but doesn’t really grab Nemane, no way in real life does that action make you fall over. I guess for us though it equals out as I thought the penalty for Doncaster wasn’t a foul. I’d like to see ex-players start refereeing after they retire from playing. Football in this country has so much money, I think the FA should have program specially for lower league players after retiring so they can have a viable career. You’d have players who have been in those moments on the pitch, they know what it takes to knock you of balance, how much force is in a tackle. I think the standard would increase dramatically. On a slight side note, I don’t think going down the route of constant criticism of refereeing mistakes is the answer either. It’s become the norm now to blame the ref and some of the abuse a lot of referees get specifically at grass roots level is horrific. I play for a Sunday morning team, just for the fun of it and it’s such a low level of football it’s completely meaningless but I can’t believe how many grown men get so upset and angry at the man who’s given up his time to ref it. In our league last season one of the referees got punched by a player and the sad thing is this isn’t even a rare occurrence anymore... It'll definitely have a knock effect in the future, who want to become a ref right now?

That was as about impressive as I’ve seen us and I wouldn’t say Morecambe are particularly bad side either, probably finish mid-table, but we just absolutely tore them apart. We’ve got that swagger and confidence back now, it’s back to possession with a purpose and we’ve adapted to losing Matty Palmer by basically rotating Crowley, Austin, Langstaff and McGoldrick to drop deep and take the ball. The Langstaff contract was a masterstroke, I wonder if it hadn’t had happened how many clubs come January would have been putting in bids? 18 goals in half a season is insane and I think he’ll be looking to get to 30 this season. Everyone played well, Crowley just doesn’t know how to give the ball away, Austin kept popping up between the lines, McGoldrick looked like a Premiership player, JJ too hot to handle as usual and we dominated so much the defence didn't really need to defend! The rotations, the movements of our players were just superb. Forget the rumours about LW and Swansea, keep playing like that and Barcelona will be after him!

If it was genuinely driven by a desire to create a better European club tournament, I’d be for it, but it’s just greed. Football is in a right mess at the moment, FIFA and UEFA are just as bad at the minute, the whole thing needs a massive shake up but a European Super League just isn’t the answer.

We generally kept Stockport pretty quiet, yes disappointed with the corner but if we scored that we’d praise our team for the creativity and execution. And it did make we laugh how they bought Jayden on and chucked him upfront because he’s quick, proper school ground tactics (not really laughing cos he won them a pen!) That was much more like the Notts we know, bolder and braver taking the game to the best team in the league. We didn’t keep passing it backwards, we used Stone like the last option rather than the easy option which is a bit of a trap we’ve fallen into lately. Cameron and Brinds pushed forward, passing and movement was much better too, just needed a bit of luck with some of those crosses. They we’re very organised and defended pretty solidly through-out and it was an enjoyable game to watch. I think we deserved at least a point, but hey that’s the nature of football, just got to take that performance into Boxing day now and end this little run of losses. Oh and anyone got any footage of the Notts fans at the end? Great support as always but clearly made LW and the team a tad emotional.

I do feel the defence gets a hard time at times, I agree with @The Heff the midfielders are just as culpable as the defenders at times, when they get pressed they pass it back simply giving the responsibility to the defender. So when a defender gets pressed they can only really play it back to the goalkeeper. He'll play it out to another defender, who passes it to midfielder… If they don’t go forward it can become a vicious cycle! We’ve kind of sorted the individual errors and awful decision making from the Wimbledon/Shrewsbury games but in the last two games we’ve just lost that dynamism and the whole team’s ability to quickly win the ball back isn’t quite there. I think the general health of this squad this season is definitely hampering us now, especially as we are running with a small squad. Bostock is still clearly struggling as he only managed 60 minutes against Harrogate, so the midfield is in a right state at the minute. This is not a dig at O’Brien, he’s been great for us, but when you are suddenly relying on him to be the main man in midfield something has gone very wrong. Gosling looks to have been a proper cross your fingers and hope for the best signing and so far with January less than 2 weeks away it's not worked out. But it’s definitely not all doom and gloom, far from it. We’re still in the play-offs and whilst it would be amazing to get promoted, not getting promoted isn’t the be all and end all. We’re not in some race against the clock to get into league 1. I think when you get promoted you want to do it like last season when you are comfortably one of the best teams in the division, that way you have a better chance of continued success. There’s no point going up only to come straight back down. The Reedtz Bros have shown they like to build, and it’s absolutely the right way of doing things and that takes time. Luke Williams has shown last season he’s 100% the right man for the job and I’m certain we’ll have a few fresh faces in January. The club is the best position it’s been for years, probably the best in my time supporting Notts.

Interestingly we actually switched to a back 4 in the second half of yesterdays game. I don't think there was much difference to be honest. People can read into the formations too much, we've played a variation of a 3-4-2-1, with an ever changing back 3, all season and our form has only recently started to dip. For me I'd say that's more to do with the application of the players more than the positions they are playing in.

Worrall recently signed a new contract and according to FM earns about £40,000. McKenna is on about £25,000 (I know it’s a game but they usually aren’t far off with these things). Nice idea and I wouldn’t say no but they aren’t going to let them come here for free, nor can I see them dropping 3 divisions! I’d say we’ve got about 0.1% chance of either happening.

Yeah, that was not good. Shrewsbury was all about individual errors, the Walsall game (although I didn’t go) was a dreadful second half. Well this was the complete performance, pretty dire for the whole 90. Harrogate looked up for it at the start, almost waiting for us to make a mistake, but they didn’t need to. They did in 5 minutes what we struggled to do all game, attack and get us running backwards, a neat-cut back and an annoyingly great finish and that’s us 1-0 down. Then Harrogate just sat back, and let us pass it around for a bit until they decided to string together another 5 passes and score. For all our possession it was too easy for Harrogate we played far too safe and just had the ball for the sake of having it. Far too many backward passes when a bit of bravery was needed. We must have played about 1 or 2 balls in behind their defence that first half, I could’ve played in at CB they were that untroubled. Our ability to get the byline and put dangerous crosses in has just gone. 2nd half wasn’t any better, our goal came out of nowhere but it gave me hope we could nick a draw... That hope lasted for about 90 seconds, just an inability to read the game, it’s like we got too over excited and went all out to immediately equalise. Just like in the first half, Harrogate made about 4 passes, got up the pitch and nice bit of play in the box and it’s 3. No defensive howlers, Stone's contribution for the second aside, but that was so passive we just let them run past us constantly and failed to make tackles time and time again. It reminded me of the Sutton game. We had our best spell in the last 15 minutes of the game, not a positive though, Harrogate had pretty much given up by then, they knew they could take it easy and we hadn’t really laid a glove on them all game. I don’t know why we’ve gone so off the boil at the moment, we’ve gone from all-out attack to no attack. We look off the pace, we look vulnerable as soon as we lose the ball. So yeah, all in all an awful day out! Only made better by the fact I was there with an old friend who lives nearby, so I was able to have a few drinks after and forget (try to) the whole 90 minutes. I saw the Stockport score and they are next up. Play like that and we are in serious trouble, don’t even bother turning up in fact. What’s the punishment for not fulfilling a fixture? A fine and a 2-0/3-0 loss? I’d take that.