Fozzy

It is embarrassing, no other word for it, Sutton have scored 40 goals all season, but 9 of them have been against us, and I hate to keep banging on about it but we had warnings in pre season that the defence wouldn’t be good enough. Then August came and it showed from the off that they weren’t good enough, what does the club do? It signs a couple of kids to bolster it. January comes and it is now evident and has an imperative need for upgrade, what does the club do? Signs another kid! This falls on Montague and his team, they have let the club and supporters down appallingly since the start of the season, only signing Macari and Robertson that look anything like half decent is shocking (juries out on Colkett and Jatta as not seen enough). You can’t keep signing kids and injury prone players as you are hoping rather than anticipating that they will make a difference, you have to sign solid, experienced pros as well. Maynard is fighting a losing battle here as the players just won’t perform for him, but chopping and changing formations mid game is just asking for trouble. You can’t experiment during a game just find a system and stick to it, it’s not as if we’ve got a barn door striker on the bench that we can chuck on to cause havoc for the final 15 if chasing a game. A lot of players need to leave in the summer, but the ones more likely to go are the ones who are actually still trying to perform.

We could only go direct down the channels though as we are too small through the middle, we would need a proper target man for that and we just don’t have one. You’re absolutely right @Robbie, we have never been able to deal with the high press, even when Birchnall was in charge. Today, Crewe nailed us with it and doubled up on both our wingers as soon as they got the ball. Contrast that to Crewe’s first goal, two Crewe players over for a short corner and Notts only send one player over to stop it. They had all the time in the world to get that ball into the box and just cannot defend crosses. I don’t blame Maynard, he’s trying to find solutions to problems that have been here for a long time. Richard Montegue’s team are the real culprits, for their failure to find defenders good enough for league two. He’s been more obsessed by their passing stats rather than their defensive ones.

Issue is, this Notts side cannot play ugly, it is too lightweight to try and play physical. I watched Jatta and my in depth analysis after 45 minutes would be that he looks quite quick and ran around a bit! He didn’t really do anything else. Looked a bit weak against their centre halves, and not that great in the air. He needs the ball over the top to run onto, but if the defence sits deep he won’t have that option. The main trouble now is that we had a really small squad at the start of the season and lost three of those players to long term injuries by October. That has meant that the rest of the 1st XI are burnt out and can’t give any more. The urgency has gone, and there just isn’t the same effort being put into closing down the opposition. Today was pretty awful, we didn’t even start to play until around the 35 minute mark and by then the game was gone. At one stage in the second half you could even see the frustration on Balwin’s face when he had to play the ball back to the keeper as he had no other options available. Subbing off Robertson was an error and Crowley was playing way too deep and was completely ineffective for most of the game. I will add though that the Crewe players were embarrassing with their feigning injuries, but luckily the ref wasn’t having any of it. 3 more points needed to stay up and that’s all we can expect to do this season now. Big summer rebuild required, but unfortunately we have gifted too many 2 year contracts to players proving that that they can’t step up to the levels required, and that could be a massive sticking point.

Would say that from reading the above he is spot on. I won’t listen to his interview though as I think he is the most disingenuous manager I have ever come across, the blokes a low life and not worth the air time. He never gives the opposition any credit when they beat him and is even worse when his side wins.

Totally unexpected result but I felt more confident when I saw the team sheet. Playing 4 centre halves (trying to think if Macari was a RB at Stoke) across the back just gives that extra cover and still leaves us with 4 quality attackers in the side, along with Robertson who is getting better and better the more he plays. Fully deserved win, we looked fairly solid and hopefully the more we play this system the more we will get used to it. Credit to Maynard for playing it, as it is something Luke refused to do because he didn’t want to lose an attacker.

Exactly @Piethagoram, our defence has no awareness of threat, are physically bullied and have no urgency to close down and get tight to attackers. The least said about our keeper the better, but he has leaden feet, and refuses to get physical and leave his line for corners. He reminds of the goalkeepers on the old ‘Super Striker’ table top football game, as they never left their line and by the time you got them to dive the ball is nestling in the back of the net.

Yet another young, inexperienced defender. Will be a good player in a couple of years but at the moment he is making the mistakes you would expect a young player to make. Would be good alongside an experienced, vocal partner, oh wait, we don’t have one of those. Again, the recruitment team have ignored our defensive needs in the window.

Well, that was a tough watch. Never created one clear opening in the first half as Crowley’s goal was all his own work, Gillingham just did the basics well at the back, which is something that we are incapable of doing and we couldn’t break them down. Stone is without a doubt, the worst keeper I remember in a Notts shirt for many a year. Immobile, flat footed, and glued to his line for crosses. That third goal was totally shambolic, we’ve just got to find a way to ship him out in the summer. I’m pretty sure the season is done for us now, without Matty we just have no idea what to do and we can’t move the ball quick enough without him. We’re physically too small and get so easily bullied by bigger sides and our players just can’t cope with it, only Robertson was willing to get stuck in and try to win the ball, the rest of the side appear to be scared of getting hurt! Going to take us at least two seasons to be in a position to challenge for promotion, we need a lot of personnel change.

I despair at some of the comments on Twitter saying that the manager isn’t good enough. The blokes had 2 games against top 3 clubs, what do they expect?!? Defensively we’re much better and the goals will come, it takes time to implement a new manager’s ideas. Even the Mansfield fans that I know think that Macca should have had a penalty. Goes to show that Nigel played a blinder by outing last week’s ref for poor decisions, obviously got into this refs head not to give us anything.

Mansfield will press our back 3 again, and with the horrible pitch state they have at the moment it will lead to us making mistakes. Fully expect Flint to play as I don’t think his shoulder was dislocated and he’s as hard as nails, so I’m guessing it will end 3-1 to them with us getting a late consolation goal. They’re a bigger and stronger side than us, and we don’t have the height up front to go long. I just can’t see us getting the win but would love to be proved wrong, and if we can’t do it now with all their injuries and suspensions then I don’t know when we can.

Brindley has to go I’m afraid, the guy never seems to have any urgency to get back into position or to make any kind of block. Not a bad ball player, but his positional sense is terrible. This isn’t obviously based on yesterday’s game, but it looks like he’s up to his old tricks from the highlights I’ve seen and he has been guilty of this all season.

Just goes to show that despite the fact I played senior cricket to a decent level for over 25 years, I know nowt!!! ???? Great win to be fair, thanks to two men. Still think we would have lost if Kohli had played though.

England are currently nowhere near good enough to compete with India, especially in India. Batting is too erratic and the bowling too much of a muchness. You need to be either a really good spinner or express quick and our bowlers (except sicknote Wood) are neither of those.

Good luck to the lad, and hopefully see a bit more of him over the next month or two. Hopefully next season (or even this if we can ever get Morias and Randall fit) comes around, we’ll help his development by loaning him out to a decent level team.

Our defence is garbage, but has been for a couple of seasons. Fans knew it needed strengthening in the summer, but all we got were two kids. I also think that we can still play high possession football away from home but definitely need a shift in personnel by adding a proper CDM with pace, heading and tackling ability, a better back 3 who can actually mark and close down the opposition, and a competent goalkeeper who can marshal his back line and claim crosses. We also need either another striker or attacking midfielder as Morias is a sicknote and Randall is more like Lord Lucan than a footballer! Finally, I’d like to see a proper RWB in place of Nemane, someone who can actually defend as well as attack. This won’t all come in January so needs to be sorted for next season. We are not good enough away from home because we are too lightweight and can’t cope when pressed. We are also not good enough because we only have around 6 or 7 players in the first XI capable of winning us promotion. I hope the owners, directors and management have now realised that you need a larger squad in the EFL to be competitive as ours is now threadbare because of its size and injury list.

Agree with @Robbie__64, keep the same side if fit as they have nearly 2 weeks to recover for the next game. This will be a test as Tranmere’s form has picked up, but we will be better than them IF we continue like we have for the last 3 games. Just keep mistakes down to a minimum and we will be fine.

Mick Walker went right down in my estimations after this game as I felt he showed no class whatsoever in singling out Dijkstra for his mistake. I laid just as much blame on Cherry as he came rushing out when there was no need to as Dijkstra had it covered. Overall, it was a more than fair result on the night as Derby had by far the best chances, but Gary Mac could have put the game out of reach but shot too near their keeper when normally he would have buried it. That Derby side was an expensive unit as well with Tommy J, Shorty, Paul Kitson, Paul Simpson and Gabbiadini in it (I think Gabbiadini was on the bench).

????????????

I don’t know anything at all about women’s football (apart from the fact it’s poor) so can’t think of anybody really. Wild guess would be Chi Chi Mendes?

Some Wrexham fans genuinely think they might get beat, because their record against us is terrible and they aren’t playing very well at all. Tozer is well out of form, O’Connell went off injured yesterday and Mullin is still finding his full fitness. They are winning games through talent and grit, not tactics at the moment and Elliott Lee is the key man for them. Keep him quiet and that’s half the battle, but I do worry about their long ball over the top game and the pressure we will be under from crosses.

You would definitely not be wrong with that one!! ????

Wish you’d post them up later @CliftonMagpieas it’s tea time between 5&6PM. Can’t you post it past 9 o’clock, after @Fan of Big Tone has had his Horlicks? ????

I’m eagerly awaiting the next one, but I have no idea when 6om is! ????

This is tough as our youth players haven’t been great. The only name I’ve got is a young lad who was on the soccer AM skills school doing tricks and who I saw playing for Stamford a couple of times, and that’s Nathan Fox as I know he was was from Leicester. I think we had him on the bench a couple of times.

Can you give plenty of notice as to when you’re posting up the clues @CliftonMagpie? @Fan of Big Tonelives on here and gets about 12 guesses in before any of us have seen it! ????