Elite_pie

Agreed, brilliant game and a brilliant performance, also a great atmosphere created by the smallish crowd. We were all over the place defensively in the first 10 minutes but kept battling, and created enough chances to have gone in ahead at half time. Every player gave their all, there wasn't a single poor performer in black and white. Great stuff Notts, best tenner I've spent in ages.

I just hope we take the competition seriously and field our strongest eleven. There is no doubt the FA Cup has lost some of it's appeal due to stupid changes made by the FA (I'm thinking such as ties spread over Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday to suit TV, semi-finals played at Wembley, 5pm kick-off for the final), but the prospect of Notts County making the third round draw is something I still find exciting.

To be honest picking out strikers is a difficult choice. I rate Ameobi as a first choice because the opposition know they've been in a game when he plays. I don't like playing one up front at home, so the question is who partners him? Stead has been largely disappointing, Forte mostly flatters to deceive, maybe it's time to try either Grant or Allessandra as a striker. Both have a tendency to drift out of the game in a wide role, but both have an eye for goal plus a bit of pace and could profit from Shola's flick-ons.

Because he has too many anonymous games where he contributes little. A decent sub option at this level, but he wouldn't make my starting XI.

I disagree, the introduction of Premiership 'B' teams into the competition was a sinister move and I have no doubt it is the thin end of a wedge that will see them pushing for Football League status before too long. Even though lower league fans were massively against the change, the cash they bunged was enough to see most (such as Alan Hardy) surrender. Even though it has always been an uninspiring competition, I used to attend the home games but even if we got to Wembley I wouldn't attend a game while 'B' teams are involved. Act now unless you are happy to see Notts County v Manchester United 'B' as a league fixture. What the Premiership wants the Premiership usually gets, and this is definitely something they want.

Interesting team selection for tonight with Shola, Stead and Grant all on the bench: Fitzsimons, Tootle, Duffy, Hewitt, Dickinson, Hawkridge, Milsom, Yates, Walker, Alessandra, Forte It looks like a 4-5-1 formation with Forte as the lone striker, so I hope we use the extra man in midfield to pass a bit more and avoid the big boot because that style of play won't suit Forte. To be fair Nolan hasn't got much wrong regarding his squad rotation for midweek games, so fingers crossed and COYP.

The start to the season we have had has been brilliant, and way better than I thought possible so Nolan and the squad deserve a lot of praise for their achievements so far. But I'm still full of anger and disappointment at the pitiful display we gave yesterday. Of all the places for the run to end, you just knew it would be there. When the inbreds started chanting "You're an embarrassment" I was 15 minutes ahead of them. I was thinking we were an embarrassment as soon as the third went in. It's becoming an annual humiliation, we seem to save our most inept display of the season for when we go there. It's the one game I want to win above all others, but yet again we handed them the points gift wrapped on a silver platter. This was a chance to put a hefty 12 point gap between the clubs and put serious pressure on Fatty Evans. Instead we've given their stuttering season a big boost. Even though I feared the worst, given the circumstances going into the game we blew it big time.

Maybe it's the memories of our last few visits there, but I can't get too optimistic about today. At the start of the season I predicted the Stags might struggle to justify their 'favourites' tag due to the extra burden it places on them. I think they have a squad to better most in League 2, but they seem to lack the team ethic that Nolan has instilled into us. My worry is that they seem to realise their potential in the bigger games with bigger crowds (like home to Grimsby and away to Lincoln) but struggle to win the so-called easy games, like last week at Cheltenham. The good thing is that the result at this stage seems more important to them than us, even a draw will do me, so hopefully the short drive home will be a happy one.

I hope Kevin Nolan plays the ball boys, turnstile operators and tea lady with Alan Hardy in goal to stick two fingers up to this farce of a competition. I would happily contribute towards the fine.

It's true we didn't deserve anything from the game , but I thought 3-0 flattered Coventry a bit. We were never under any sustained pressure, we just gifted them three easy goals. It's easy to pin the blame on Dan Jones, but we didn't defend well as a team. The worrying thing for me is that at this stage we look far more likely to concede goals than we do score them.

There were 1,727 Notts fans in attendance, a tremendous show of support given our uninspiring pre-season in terms of results and recruitment. While The Ricoh is undoubtedly an impressive stadium which would suffice in the Premiership, I can't say I'm a fan of it either. I'm a bit of a traditionalist and prefer the old school 'four stand' type of ground to these modern 'bowl' arenas. Add the fact that they don't sell tickets for the end behind the goal opposite us, it makes it hard to create any real atmosphere as well as looking a bit odd with a big empty stand. I must admit that this afternoon though it was preferable to an open terrace at Accrington when the huge thunderstorm that delayed kick off 10 minutes was at it's peak!

I'd agree that the ref and his assistants were very poor. The one thing in the ref's credit is that he wasn't card-happy, but he was regularly conned by Coventry players going down easily and actually assisted their time wasting tactics. A few times they kicked the ball away after a free kick was given against them, and the ref seemed to chatting to players rather than watching the game. They didn't affect the result, but their performances were on a par with our defenders!

I've just read that we've sold our full allocation of 1,500 tickets for Coventry tomorrow, which means they will open another section as pay on the day is also available. When you consider our pre-season hasn't been particularly inspirational, that's a fantastic show of support. Not only will we have more away fans than some club's total home attendances in this division, it also means around a third of our average home support will be making the journey, which not many clubs could manage.

My prediction for Nolan's starting XI is: Collin Tootle, Duffy, Brisley, Jones Milsom, Hewitt, Walker, Allessandra Grant Ameobi Very difficult for a score prediction this early, but I'll go for 1-1 with 1,225 Notts fans in attendance.

Stead is wearing the (quite stylish) training top in that vid. The actual home shirt is definitely striped.

A good read Joe, but two things make me doubt your judgement a bit - firstly you saw last season's away kit as "a nice, strong, bold colour (hot pink, not red!)". Wrong, very wrong - it was an awful colour in it's own right, but it's unforgivable borderline redness was just a step too far. Secondly you openly admit you once disliked Oasis, although you do redeem yourself by citing youth and stupidity as mitigating circumstances (I can only use the latter these days). I suppose there is a limit to what you can do with black and white stripes, and our 'outside the box' flirtations with chevrons, barcodes and pinstripes were all disasters, but I think the new one is a good effort. I'd have to see the faded back stripes 'in the cloth' to see if they work, but I'm quite tempted to add the (lifelong Notts fan) Jake Bugg logo and make a rare full price purchase.

Absolutely agree with with the "it's what matchdays are about" comment. I used the 'bring a friend' voucher to introduce my middle daughter's boyfriend to the delights of Meadow Lane, and he was amazed at the passion shown by both sets of fans. He is a Man U fan who has only been to a couple of games at Old Trafford, but I think he was one of those who previously thought that lower league football meant watered down support. He would be right numerically of course, but hopelessly wrong in terms of passion. I wonder how many of the prawn sandwich Premiership brigade would stick with their club if they have suffered how we have over the past 15 years?

I don't think it was a case of "letting" supporters on the pitch, you could see the cops didn't stand a chance of containing that many fans! Thankfully it was all good natured celebration but you can see the problem if it was done at a club where the home fans didn't like it and decided to join in. Your support yesterday was excellent both numerically and vocally, and I'm sure it's a day you'll remember for a long time. I was driving home 30 minutes after the final whistle and could still hear Pompey fans celebrating in the background while our players were being interviewed on local radio. I just hope you have another visit to Nottingham to plan next season even though it would be on the shabby side of the Trent!

The goals from today, which backs up my thoughts at the game - no need to lunge in for the penalty, great finish from Grant, Collin should have done better with their second, and would love to see a better angle for their third because he looks miles offside. http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/competitions/league-two/10841591/notts-county-1-3-portsmouth

The absence of Ameobi was a big blow, we know playing Stead as a lone striker doesn't work. I thought in team selection and formation we showed them too much respect and handed them the initiative from the start. On the plus side an excellent attendance and atmosphere, at least it gives us an idea of where we need to be to compete at the top end of the league.

Just happy to get to this stage of the season and be able to be fairly relaxed about the result, as I honestly thought these last few games would be real nail-biters. Looking forward to tomorrow, I'm using my 'bring a friend' voucher to try and tempt one of my daughter's boyfriends into wanting more, so an exciting game with a few goals would be ideal. As far as the line-up goes, maybe Milsom back in if he's fit at the expense of Hewitt or Campbell, otherwise leave it as it is. I'll go for a 2-2 draw.

Funny how people seem to see the game differently, that's why I like the player rating threads to see who agrees with me and who doesn't. I don't get the "Dickinson acted like he was a left back" comment - he was a left back! I thought he had a solid game and played his part in making sure Adam Collin had a fairly easy time. On to Adam Campbell, I think the one aspect of his game you can't knock is his effort. His poor first touch and his use of the ball means he's always going to struggle at League 2 level, but he covered a lot of ground today and closed down their midfield well. He just doesn't have the physical stature to impose himself on games, so I don't think we should retain him.

That's a game we would have comfortably lost in the first half of the season. It was a brilliant game to watch, not in the sense of free flowing football because there wasn't a lot of that, but it was riveting stuff and the crowd really got behind the 10 men, every tackle, challenge and block was enthusiastically applauded, even more so as the clock ticked down. Every player gave every last ounce of effort. I thought Nolan got the tactics spot on after the red card, dropping Ameobi to left midfield to replace Yeates seemed odd at the time, but we protected the defence well and still offered more attacking threat than they did. Great to see so many staying after the final whistle in all 3 stands to give the players the ovation they deserved - here it is for those who weren't there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZuLGLJ-SHA

A bit of good news for tomorrow is that Orient captain Liam Kelly has just been handed a six game FA ban for pushing a ball boy over in their win at Plymouth. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39011027

I'll pass on that one. When the stats suggested that Alex Rodman was vital to the team I threw my calculator in the bin!