menzinho

Confirmed now. Not got much luck with injuries this season... ????

Mustapha Dumbuya joined us from Crawley.

I’ll be gutted if he’s out for the season. Nothing mentioned in the press conference for the weekend so if he’s not in the squad this weekend that’ll pretty much confirm it, the only mystery would be the severity of the injury. Sounds like we'll have bit of makeshift midfield this weekend then. Hopefully Bostock is back for Crewe because his and Palmer’s ability to retain the ball is something we’ll miss hugely. I don’t think anyone else in the squad can do what they do.

There wasn’t much in it, that deflection was unlucky and changed the game but that’s football. It just didn’t quite click for us in the final third, we missed our chances and the longer it stayed at 0-0 the more confident Wrexham got. No one really had a bad game, I think Wrexham’s man of the match was their keeper which says a lot. I knew he was on loan, didn’t realise he came from Arsenal having just played a season in the Austrian 1st Division! They’ve certainly got a bit of pulling power. I just think right now our injuries have hampered us. We needed to be able to bring on a player or two who could change the game, but right now we don't have it. I’m not too down after that, still would’ve been nice to win/draw but performance wise it was much better than Mansfield.

I’d guess she (or her team) had been interviewed and gave an answer like “I’m looking to invest in Knox County”. Meaning she's interested in buying property there. Some doddery old British journalist wasn’t really listening and thought she said Notts County.

Yeah, tough one this, but I seem to remember John Sheridan had a short spell as manager at Newport.

I guess they would likely form part of a consortium like they did with Viborg, maybe involved more for the stats/analysis they can offer. Be surprised if they bought them outright. However if they got involved with another club that would mean less time spent at Notts. Would it impact us though? From what I gather they very much put people in place and let them get on with the job. The new CEO, Joe Palmer will be responsible for the day to day running like Jason Tuner was.

Yep a very good night for us. Jones sounded like he gave their full back a night to forget, Macca unlucky not to get a hat-trick and chances for Morias too. But most importantly to me we got a clean sheet (maybe aided by the poor performance of Newport) but a good confidence boost for the defence nonetheless. Sets us up nicely for Wrexham.

So he's off to the National League North and what a great start! Rushall won 5-0 he came off the bench and scored! Should be a good move for him, if he does well there maybe a move to a National League club will be his next loan.

At the start of the season I was quietly confident we’d have a good season, I didn’t think we’d start as well as we have done though. A lot of opinions have been voiced about our defence, there’s definitely room for improvement but I still think a lot of that comes down to how we set out to play. I think regardless of individuals we will always look a bit susceptible at the back because we load our team with attacking players and push everyone forward leaving space in behind. This season the quality of opposition has also improved, our defenders have pretty much stayed the same. It was always going to be more challenging. But right now our attacking prowess, one of the reasons we are very enjoyable to watch, is seeing us through. If you look at the stats we are actually very efficient in attack; given the high number of goals we’ve scored we haven’t actually had that many shots. I think in only a few games this season we’ve had more shots than the opposition; those were Grimsby, Tranmere Salford & Colchester (we lost that one!) – I know stats can tell their own stories, dangerous shots would be more interesting and better stat (but I’m not going to re-watch every game to compile that). Quite a few teams we’ve played have been happy to shoot from distance but we don’t tend to just hit and hope, be it in crossing and shooting, we’re much more likely to be patient to try and create a genuinely good goals scoring chance. I agree with Luke Williams that we haven’t hit our peak performance yet, probably Salford away and Swindon at home were stand-outs, overall I’m very pleased with our form!

Yep, home draw is always a bonus. I a way I'm glad it's not a team like Kettering or Tamworth, your proper non-league lower than even National League level. Still have horrible memories of losing to Hornchurch and Salford.

Stuart Nelson, joined them after leaving us. Dropped back into League 2 but I think he got promoted with them.

They won’t have a new manager before playing us so that’s a positive. It’s not always the case that a new manager guarantees a better result, but I always think players will usually try that bit harder to impress a new boss. They’re aren’t very good at scoring and recently starting conceding, probably because they’re trying to rectify their goal troubles and have pushed a few more forward leaving them more vulnerable at the back – I hope that’s the case anyway! We always seem to react well after a big defeat, the team will want to get straight back on track. I seem to remember after the Dorking loss we played York (who were no pushovers) we ran like 1/3 more than usual (maybe I made that figure up) but we definitely ran more than normal! I think the conversation afterwards was about how out-working the opponent always gives you a better chance of getting a good result. Same sort of reaction would be fab. Yeah I’m really hoping Bostock is fit too, guess we'll know when the pre-match press conference is out. Cameron should be back, I’m sure Luke said they found out he was unavailable on the morning. Suggests to me he was ill, It would be really unlucky/freakish to pick up an injury at home!

I thought Mansfield really did a job on us. Yes we started well and scored but after that we couldn’t get the ball into midfield or our wingbacks so the defence passed it around a bit, got pressed and then passed it back to Slocombe to kick long. We then didn’t pick up enough second balls and just looked a bit passive/all over the place. It was worrying how thread bare the squad was. Scott and Bajrami would’ve been good options for us that game it’s a real shame they are missing. And then to have Cameron, Chicksen, Randall (did we accidently forget to register him to play) and Jones all out. That meant the bench was weak, Morias was our only attacking option but the fact only O’Brien and Adebayo got on says a lot. Might as well send Macari and Tipton back as it feels like they’re just here to make up numbers at the mo. That result and peformance was very unexpected. Don’t get me wrong the overall picture is still very good, but the goals against is becoming a tad worrying now.

Like you say I've no idea what attacking a site like this achieves, no gain for anyone really. It's great that's it's back up though, I've been boring my family and friends with all my Notts thoughts and opinions this past week!

I know he's had an unfortunate start to his Notts career after picking up an injury during pre-season but by all accounts he's now fit and just waiting for that chance. I wonder how long he'll have to wait though. If the idea was that he'll play at wingback he's now surely 3rd choice (on both sides) behind Chicksen & Adebayo. Maybe he's being trained behind the scenes to play in the central attacking role behind the striker, I just don't know. With a little bit of rotation likely, he could well feature against Swindon and then I'd get my answer but right now I'm struggling to see how and where he gets into the team.

Am I right in thinking it's various in depth interviews, I'm sure he said something like that about how he's spoken to lots of different people at the club about the season. Does look interesting though.

They lost again today, and it was 2-0 so that's 10 league games* without a goal now! ???? *12 games really, an own goal still doesn't cut it for me !

When you look at that starting 11, we’ve basically got 3 defenders and 1 defensive midfielder. Both Jones and Nemane are effectively wingers that have been converted into wingbacks. Crowley and Austin are attacking midfielders and McGoldrick and Macca are both forwards. That leaves 4 players, Palmer, Cameron, Baldwin and Brindley who are naturally defensively minded. I know people criticise the defence, and yes they could’ve defended individual moments better, but to see comments about needing “new defenders” is unfair in my opinion. We started with an incredibly attack minded team, which gave them little protection. I agree with @NottsLoyal about the importance of Bostock, in my opinion right now the midfield is heavily reliant on Palmer and Bostock playing together, they give the defence more cover. Not having Bajrami is a huge miss, he’s our only other defensive midfielder. Tipton is potentially an option here and I think we’ll have to use him as there’s no way we can go a whole season and expect Palmer and Bostock to play every second. We’re still top of the league and think todays game and results in general show there isn’t much difference in quality between all the teams, a whole host of teams will think they can get promoted this season.

When he was first announced I had no real gut feeling that he’d be the one to get us back into the league. I’d never heard of him and his only managerial/head coach spell was at Swindon (albeit they were a bit of basket case at the time) and whilst he’d had coaching jobs this was his first time in 5 years since taking the lead role again. Then I remember watching a video the media team put out of his first day of training and at the end he spoke to the players about how he wanted to play. That passing game we'd become accustomed to but now when we lose the ball to be aggressive and win it straight back, “like playing against 20 outfield players” is I think what he said. Then we had the pre-season and I was really impressed how he’d actually implemented that philosophy and so quickly. I was more hopeful we’d have a good season but I didn’t think we’d have a record-breaking great season though! Luke Williams did a phenomenal job last season, no-one can argue that. And right now I just feel so lucky to have him. I love listening to him speak, he’s really smart in footballing terms, he spots things that have completely gone over my head. And he’s an absolute perfectionist, even if we win a game 3-0 he talks about how there’s always something we can do better. It feels like there is no ceiling to Luke Williams ability right now and I hope he’s here for a long time, because I think he'll take us up again. He’s got my backing 100%, I genuinely can’t think of anyone (in the realms of realism; so no Pep, Klopp or Arteta) that would do a better job than him.

Notts 1 Wycombe 0 (2008) It was our last home game of the season and last but one game of the season. I’m 99% sure a win would keep us up, not a great game but Butcher scoring meant we did! We actually had a relatively large crowd for the time. Notts 1 Man City 1 (2011) I’ve just looked back and the City team is stronger than I remember it and we were so close to actually winning it too! Still an amazing memory for me. Who’d have thought with a performance like that we’d go on and lose 9 games in a row later that same season…

The Athletic did a piece on the Scunthorpe owner David Hilton (if that is his real name!) and how he’s been previously convicted of fraud. Like @DangerousSausage says they’ve spent big and I agree, I'm doubtful they even had the money to do it. It’s all very reminiscent of us and Munto (granted on a smaller scale). Big money signings for the level, quickly followed by questions being asked about the owner when someone does a bit of digging. He also got the seal of approval from none other than Alan Hardy! Speaking to ITV Yorkshire about the proposed takeover, Hardy said: “To be fair to him (Hilton), he’s taken Ilkeston on to the next level. He’s put in a 3G pitch and he’s done loads of work around the club. I hope he does exactly the same job that he’s done for Ilkeston Town that he does at Scunthorpe because that would be amazing. I don’t know the people of Scunthorpe. I’ve only interacted with a couple of dozen on Twitter, but what I have found is an immense passion and desire for great football and success at Scunthorpe United. If David Hilton does for Scunthorpe what he’s done for Ilkeston, then I think they’re going to be in good hands.” It was doomed from the start, it definitely doesn’t look good for them.

I terms of what’s posted on twitter, Tom’s comments were relatively tame. I can tell you right now the replies to Notts’ tweet about him giving away a pen or the reaction (overreaction) to the tweet about MK Dons scoring will be much worse. Feels like he’s picked on the wrong guy here. Especially when you see the same names posting things like “X needs to do one” or “X is so bad” (that’s the expletive subbed version!). If he replied to one of them I can’t imagine the backlash would be as bad, they offer no critic and are just personal insults. Instead, he went for someone who slightly criticised what he did on the pitch.

So they’ve played 11 games and the only goal scored was an own goal, none of their own players have scored for them yet. Even though it's officially 9 league games they’ve basically not scored a goal in 11 games, that is shockingly bad. Even when we’ve been rubbish over long periods (I’m talking relegation season or the years before that) we’ve never had a goal scoring drought that has been that bad. Even when we had our record-breaking losses (what a time that was) we were awful yet still scored! We'd scramble the ball over from a corner or have someone score a goal out of nothing. They must be really terrible or the unluckiest team ever for that not to happen so far this season.

He's had a great managerial career but I think he should give it up now, definitely agree with others that say he should enjoy his retirement. I always find it odd when people say they don't look forward to retiring, I think it suggests you don't have much of a life outside your work which can be pretty tragic. There's no reason he can't still be involved in football, I'm sure there'd be tons of grassroots projects nearby where he lives that would love to have him on board. A little bit of weekend coaching for a local youth team even, imagine him coaching 8 year olds, someone would have to film it! ????