theAnticlough

In three months MP must have passed Maynard's total of unchanged teams across his 1.5 seasons. COYP

Portsmouth 1-0 Blackburn Wrexham 2-1 Watford Burton Albion 1-2 Wycombe Peterborough 1-1 Northampton Stockport County 2-0 Stevenage Joker Cheltenham 2- 0 Harrogate Chesterfield 1-1 Barnet Crawley 1-1 Oldham Athletic

Yes, feel better soon Super Ram... But basically what the news is saying is true - there's an epidemic out there, maybe multiple, of flu-like illnesses. My eldest daughter came down hard straight after the Bristol Rovers game and is still dealing with the aftermath of it. I took my flu jab early this year, and I was really annoyed to get a cold about 10 days after. But that was all it was, classic cold symptoms, never once had a fever or felt weak. I was then in the same car/rooms/spaces as my daughter and the friend who passed on the bug. I've been fine though, which I attribute to the jab. I'm sure it'll be all gone by Xmas Super Ram and you'll be stronger for going thru it. It's the turkey that should start worrying.

Agree about Dennis. He showed that he can play that inside-forward role very well. That’s a great bonus cos we know he’s a goal scorer. Him, Jatta, Grant, progressive wing-backs and the threat of Iorpenda arriving from deep is more than enough to threaten the haddocks tomorrow. One thought looking ahead, Dennis and Hall have turned out to be pretty similar players - primarily smallish skillful strikers who can feature as AMs as well. I wonder if they’ll be competing for the same spot in the second half of the season. Or can we regularly play them both?

6 weeks! Ouch that’s a real blow. Ollie Norburn suddenly becomes very important and Hinchy will have to cover from the bench Great time then for Iorpenda to get that tremendous confidence boost, we’re going to need him to be right on top of his game this month, including when Palmer comes back

and there's confirmation that Robbo is injured. If it was flu it would read 'unavailable'

You could be right @menzinho but the OS says Jack Hinchy has been recalled from his loan spell at Altrincham. The midfielder returns to bolster our midfield ranks at a time when both Matt Palmer and Scott Robertson are unavailable due to injury.

Maybe, but he played quite a lot last season - that still counts as a great bounceback from his NL days. A different case entirely, but it's fun keeping an eye on one of my favourites Aden Baldwin - playing CB for the 2nd place team in L1 currently on track to become a Championship player.

That's reason enough to recall him. Hopefully, Robbo will be back very soon. But it was noticeable that there was no CM on the subs bench v MK for the first time in weeks. MP needs the option of being able to cover that area.

Robbo back it if he's shaken off the flu or whatever it is. Apart from that unchanged I think. MP tends to give winning teams another go, so JJ and co would have to wait in line. They're at least 6 games without a league win. We might put in a classic away perfroamnce and come away 2 0r 3 goal winners.

Excellent move to cut that one short. He'll be another Francis - fail to get regular pitch time in the NL, and then pop up some time afterwards on a L1 squad. Do we know what Robbo's problem is? There might be more need for cover than has been disclosed.

I see Walsall win to go 4 pts clear at the top. No worries, they come down with the Christmas decoarations anyway. In other news, Crewe lose points to a 90+3 mins equaliser by bottom club, Nweport. What a shame for Crewe ;)

Nice strip Flint is wearing there, I wouldn't mind that coming back as a home or away shirt one season.

Spot on about the ref and also the midfield. Everyone's elated last night and today, and rightly so, but we shouldn't kid ourselves that being outplayed in our own stadium by a promotion rival doesn't matter. Warne was one-sided in his post-match interview, but he was onto to something when he said that MK would win that one if it was replayed 9 times out of ten. That doesn't account for being gifted a pen and spared an obvious red card. If those decisions were given correctly, we'd have run out easy 2 or 3-1 winners of the game. But in terms of general play, territorial dominance and chances (they were very wasteful) he has a point I think. Most times that will translate into wins. We do need to have our first choice midfielders available for other top 6 or 7 battles this season or we might not enjoy too many other victories in them.

I don't think you can underestimate the desperation to get out of the division at that point @DangerousSausage. Scott and Maca were both in the first years of their contracts, so of course Morais was cover for those two, who had both proven themselves. Wasn't Scott injured for a while? And we had nobody else at all in terms of strikers. So no forward on the bench and if Maca was injured nobody at all? We just had to sign someone as insurance against an epic season and a chance of promotion going down the drain. The length of the contract suggests Montague and the club thought he could be a squad player for multiple seasons. If they did they were wrong, you win some you lose some.

Warne saying in his post-match that he took Nemane off because he was on 'a strong orange'. Well there isn't an orange card so you mean red. That says it all. They should've been playing with 10 from that point in the first half

Another takeaway - don't get injured if you want to be a 1st team regular. McDonald, Dennis, Platt, JJ have all experienced this in the last few months. They were automatic selections, got injured and then found someone else playing well in their place and it's a fight to get back in.

Pato goes from strength to strength His maxim 'performance is the responsibility of the player, the result is his responsibility' is really working a treat by this stage. Team selection has made so much sense (especially when Compared to Maynard's chopping and changing) and I think the players understand, respect and respond well to this. If you perform you will keep your place. If you don't, MP will give a chance to someone else. I get the impression the club are tracking perfromance really well and we have a Head Coach who is not afraid to act on the information he gets, and what he sees for himself.

Yeah, it was a sad case. I'm convinced the main reason RM signed him in March was insurance against injury (especially Maca) in a season we were hellbent on getting promoted. In the event, we hardly needed him for that. Just checked though, he's made 15+ moves in 13 years, so he's just one of those journeymen players. Good luck to him at Hornchurch, who are clear at the top of NLS

A point to mention re:Iorpenda I think, is that he got his first goal (and the earlier chance) from defensive midfield. Norburn hardly ventured over the halfway line, which is fine, so Tom had licence to support the attack from deep and join in at set pieces. I think he should stay there. Now the monkey's off his back, he could chip in 4 or 5 from that position. His mobility and athleticism also mean he's an ideal midfield partner for Palmer and Norburn. And we've seen that he combines very well with Robbo. It also gives the opposition a real headache having to account for him joining the attack from deep and sometimes late. It sounds like Palmer will be out til Jan almost, so we need Tom there til then probably. Once this season we had Jatta, Dennis and Iorpenda as the front 3, all on top of their games, and it was awesome. One game is all I can remember for that. This might still be a good formula for the run-in, if Jatta stays and we don't land a new, 1st choice no.10 in the window. For now though TI is doing great in CM and he should stay there IMO.

With the chance to watch the film for their penalty, it's clear that it was very soft indeed. Neither Notts player involved did all that much and you have to assume it was given against Grant. Their player went down theatrically whoever it was that was supposed to have fouled him. So that, added to the non-sending off of Nemane, meant that we were right to give it to the ref at HT and at the end still. He could have cost us 3pts and that means a different looking table at the end of the season.

Terrific game tonight, even though we were second best in terms of play. Dennis' great goal was very important. It would've been a different story if they'd scored the next goal. It'll be interesting to see the penalty - it just looked like a crazy scramble from the far end of the Pavis. I don't think the foul on Tsaroulla was a pen. But Nemane should've been sent off for a second bookable offence. I think how quickly Warne subbing him soon afterwards at HT points to that as well. Fans had a right to be incensed about that. Everyone played their part, but it will be good to get Robbo back and then the skipper.

It'd be mean not to give it to Iorpenda. Catharsis for him. After that freakish miss in the first half, you could see how much it meant to him. His all-round game was strong anyway and it was a good shout by the sponsor to make him MoM. I wonder what will change for him now he has that monkey off his back - his first ever senior goal. Loved Dennis' involvement - I think he has to play regularly again. Also Bennetts did very well.

The 'Welcome back Crowley' game earlier this year had a very nice outcome. A classic Notts night under the floodlights, including cracking goals from Didzy and Will Jarvis.

Totally understandable, you've really got to brace yourself for some winter matches in the worst conditions. It's kind of a bit dangerous...very easy to get sick. We were nuts to attend Lorient v Lyon 2 nights ago - the whole Atlantic Ocean seemed to be descending on the stadium. Many of the Lyon fans were shirtless in an uncovered area and stayed that way all game, even after going 1 down and then with 10 men. I expect to be more comfortable tonight, if the game goes ahead.