menzinho

Yeah tough one because their goal was the only stain on an otherwise very solid display. Was Platt a bit slow to react to the through ball? Should Bedeau score that chance at the very end? Crowley was his usual self in that he was very tidy on the ball but didn't cause too many problems for their defence this time round. Think I'll say Bedeau though, his general defensive display was very good, I'll let him off because he's not a forward!

Yeah, just have to wait and see. Sometimes the impact injuries where you get kicked are the worst in terms of soreness for the early stages and it could all just be precautionary. I’m hoping it’s nothing more than a horrible bruise that will calm down and recover quicker than actual ligament or bone damage. But then again leaving on crutches seems a bit sever for just a bruise…

I think it’s more frustrating because Gillingham weren’t exactly world beaters, it does feel like points lost in a game we should’ve got something from. First half we should’ve scored and then second half at the at the end we had a couple of decent chances too. I heard Stuart’s post-match interview on the radio on the way back, not sure I’d agree that we were excellent though and unfortunately I think the officials got both the penalty and offside call right. I’d need to double check the rules but even though Brown doesn’t head the ball, he does still go for it making him active which would then cause Austin to be offside - feel free to correct me here! But we just started that second half a bit sluggishly, almost too calmly like "we've got 45 minutes to get a goal here, we don't need to rush!" And so we didn't really didn’t threaten Gillingham that much. I think that Macari shot was all we could muster for about 30 minutes until the later stages. It was all a bit samey lots of players coming short, no-one really making any runs in behind. And we really missed Jatta, we got into a lot of decent crossing positions but didn’t always deliver the ball and when we did we didn’t always have the presence to compete with their CBs. But that said other than a few long-range efforts our defence was hardly under much pressure for a lot of that game, fine margins really and even though I wasn't overly impressed with them I'd still expect to see Gillingham in the top 7 come the end of the season.

Luton Town 2-0 Sheffield Wednesday Sheffield United 2-1 Derby County Bolton Wanderers 1-2 Reading Peterborough United 2-0 Bristol Rovers ???? Bradford City 1-1 AFC Wimbledon Salford City 0-1 Walsall Hartlepool United 1-2 Dagenham & Redbridge Oldham Athletic 2-0 Yeovil Town

Now I never saw football in the 80s or earlier but my dad usually reminds me of all these great players from back in the day and which of them he was fortunate to meet and most of these stories have one thing in common – they all met in the pub! Football was a totally different sport in a way, I would guess the level of fitness was on a different level and that players were rarely pushed to their limits, unlike the players of today. Players these days are like finely tuned machines, they train a lot more, they play more games and are basically pushed to their maximums. I think it’s also worth noting that even before players make it as professionals, they’ll have played loads of games and trained regularly in academies – again almost in the same way as pros do. I think a good few years ago there was a bit of research done by arsenal looking into why their academy players who had graduated to the first team suffered so many injuries and it was do with young players in academies effectively playing too much football. At a young age bodies aren't fully developed and picking up injuries at this time can make you more sceptical to picking up injuries again the future.

Yes! Swansea was the last time in the FA Cup we faced Premiership team (just ignore the replay). I’d love another game against a big team, I can pretty much remember all our big draw FA Cup ties in recent history. We’ve had some great ties and the Man City one is up there as one of my all time favourite games at the Lane.

I don’t think so, not anytime soon anyway. Macca was probably the closest we’ll get for a while and considering he was only here for 2 seasons he did astonishingly well to get as many as he did especially when you consider Les had the luxury of 11 seasons! Imagine if Macca had been here for that long, we’d probably be looking at a total of over 200 goals! Jatta has made a good start but he’ll probably need to be here for a number of seasons to get close to the total and that rarely happens these days. And even if he continues scoring, he’ll soon attract the attention of clubs higher up and that’s another problem. A striker who’s banging them will always have bigger clubs wanting to sign them and sadly there's always going to be a club that can offer a contract that Notts just can't compete with.

Let's hope we can extend the record come Saturday, I wonder how long we've managed to go unbeaten into a season before? In our NL promotion season we also went 8 games unbeaten before we lost to Dorking... That's still a league, albeit not in the Football League. Is 8 the best streak?

As he managed Gateshead prior to MK for a number of seasons, I wonder if his family home is around there. That's surely the only reason that they'd be able to get him...

Whoops! I've had a complete shocker, neither Brunt or Dion played for Bromley, you are right. I've confused them with Boreham Wood! Both from London, both start with B, both play the same style of football and both play in white! Come on guys, make yourselves a bit more unique, they merged into one team for me in the National League as far as I was concerned!

I can't believe nobody mentioned the warrior that was Dion Kelly-Evans, nearly 100 appearances for us I thought he'd be the first one to be named!

Someone's been watching McGoldrick! Both are quality finishes. I mean if this becomes the start of a scoring run Notts might have a bit of dilemma on their hands, I mean we're not short for attacking options right now but it's a good problem to have!

I’ve seen a few people mention this too, I’ve always thought he was a bit stocky, that doesn’t quite seem the right word for him though… chunky, thicc? You know what I mean, a bit like Ruben was. But it's funny how he does look a bit beefier in the away strip, it’s our vertical stripes, they really do make you look slimmer!

Yeah I totally understood the thinking behind the starting 11, Bromley are a very physical and in past seasons we’ve struggled against them. I think Cundy is one of those who needs the run of games having missed a year of football through injury (he’ll do well to get it through cos Macari, Platt and Bedeau have been solid). From all accounts he was a tad slow to get started but got better as the half went on. There’s good character to this team and that’s probably what impressed me most because the first 10 minutes was pretty disastrous. Interesting to hear how adamant Andy Woodman was that it wasn’t a penalty, it’s hard to see from the highlights as the picture isn’t that close. I agree it looks a soft one but we had the misfortune of a lot of those type of fouls go against us in our own penalty box last season. The second half performance was very dominate though and again we fully deserved the victory. Our attacking threat is really good, so much so I’d back us to be able to score a minimum of 2 goals every game right now. We just look so capable and dangerous, long may it continue!

We always had close games against Bromley in the NL, but we never won there. The artificial pitch has gone now so that slight advantage has been levelled and I think we're more adapt to playing against the physical sides with our new recruits. Bromley's style won't have changed and Stuart Maynard and co will have faced them in the NL numerous times too so they'll know what to expect. I'll happily take a game playing against them when Cheek doesn't score, cos that seemed to regularly happen!

Sheffield Wednesday 1-2 QPR Swansea City 2-2 Norwich City Bolton Wanderers 1-0 Huddersfield Town Rotherham United 2-0 Burton Albion ???? Carlisle United 0-1 Fleetwood Town Port Vale 1-1 Chesterfield Southend United 2-1 Sutton United Tamworth 0-1 Maidenhead United

To be fair to them Boreham Wood massively underachieved last season, I don’t think anyone would’ve predicted they’d get relegated especially after they were just minutes away from getting to a play-off final the season before ???? I wonder if Luke Garrard thought he would’ve got another job in the NL over the summer. He’s been at Boreham Wood for so long I kind of think a change wouldn’t have been a bad thing. Maybe he’s looked back on the relegation and wants to make up for it by getting them promoted again. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out for him second time around.

I can think of two players that are yet to be mentioned. So I'll go with the slightly less obvious one for now: Zak Brunt, he went on loan to Bromley the season after he had a short loan with us.

Wow! I couldn't quite believe it when I saw it this afternoon, it's a fantastic job by the club to get him tied down to a longer contract. He'd have had a queue of clubs lining up for him in the summer when his contract expired so I'm glad that won't be an issue now. He's clearly very settled and happy at Notts, and players with his level of quality can help take this club to the next level.

I do wonder if we’ll see Jatta and McGoldrick paired at some point but we’ve played a rough 3-4-2-1 system for most of the season so far. I wouldn’t be opposed to it, but I do think it’s harder getting them both into the same team as it would require a change in formation. I love the idea of McGoldrick and Crowley behind Jatta on paper, the level of quality would be fantastic on the ball. But Edwards/Austin give you that tireless running and press I don’t think either Crowley or McGoldrick can provide. I would say a team with Edwards/Austin provides more balance. I think McDonald will be surprisingly solid but he's yet to play. Gordon has the unfortunate job of trying to displace Jodi. I actually like him playing on the right-hand side, but I’d still like to see him on the left as well, shame we can't clone him! That said Tsaroulla looks good and I think he'll be much more comfortable on the left. Abbott and Hinchy have started brightly for young players and we’ve got a lot of attacking quality to pick for limited spaces! If fitness was no issue this would be my team… And this wasn’t easy! Bass, Macari, Platt, Bedeau, Jones, Palmer, Robertson, Tsaroulla, Crowley, Edwards Jatta. Honestly though, it's so close between McGoldrick and Jatta, it does feel a bit wrong to leave out a player who's scored 4 goals in 2 games!

Sam Sodje was also involved in match fixing, not sure if it happened when he was at Notts but he intentionally got sent off whilst playing for Portsmouth. I’ve heard the podcast advertised on BBC5Live but I’ve not got round to listening to it yet, I will though because it does sound very intriguing. I wouldn’t be surprised if a similar story came out in a few years, with betting in football and footballers being involved again. Given you can bet on pretty much anything occurring in a football match now yellow cards, penalties, number of offsides, goal kicks inside the first minute...

Got to feel for him, came on missed a sitter and then possibly injured himself after mis-controlling the ball… He's looked like a player that's missed a season of football to me but he needs game time to get back into it, similarly to Palmer, so another injury setback is the last thing he needs. Hopefully it's more of a niggle than anything serious.

I'd like to know who does the recruitment for Morecambe because they signed both Crowley and Bedeau before we did and given the size of them I wonder how they managed to get them in the first place! He's a rare player in that he's got the size, physicality and pace - like a dream centre back really. He's made a very good start to his career here and I agree he looks like the sort of player who can hopefully move up the league with us.

McGoldrick for me, I agree with the other names suggested they all did very well but ultimately McGoldrick showed that touch of class to put Accrington away. I thought it was one his best performances for a while, he didn't just drop deep all the time he even ran in behind and continuously got at the Accrington defence. And both goals from outside the box too, it's never as easy as he makes it look!

I think Accrington might be in for a long struggle of a season, the fact we beat them so easily with Crowley, Jodi and Jatta all missing is pretty telling. It was a very comfortable performance in the end, probably should’ve scored more and that’s really all I can complain about. We just seemed to cruise through that match and maybe better opposition would’ve given us more of a game but it felt like a bit of a training session at times only broken up by an Accrington player flying in late. I didn’t like the inverted wing-backs much to be honest, I thought both Austin and Tsaroulla were very ineffective, more so in the first half where we struggled at times to really move the ball down both flanks. Tsaroulla was more of a threat second half but I think Accrington had tired by then and the player marking him was on a yellow! McGoldrick was just in a class of his own in terms of ability again, I only wish we could’ve had him 6 seasons ago! And Hinchy and Abbott did very well too, we ask a lot of our centre mids in this system. We know how key and tricky it is there, but they dealt with the pressure from the Accrington press. All in all a very impressive start to the season.