Saturday 7th October

[Alfie]

 

[lordofthepies]

We've been to Salford twice before and we were well beaten both times. Last time, that idiot Bas Sambou got himself sent off after half an hour when we were in the game at 1-0 down on a hot day and they ended up winning quite comfortably. By all accounts we put in a horrific performance when we lost there in our last promotion season.

It's relatively local for me and I've not been before so I'm going on Saturday. Hopefully we actually turn up this time.

 

[Gunit]

Congrats to Walsall on their victory.

 

[ForzaCounty]

Dangerous Donny won four of their last five, could be a major banana skin this weekend

 

[Agombar stool]

View attachment 19244

Is there any significance of the teams in Blue Alfie ?

 

[jacobncfc]

Pete Wild's Halifax were always a tough game in the NL, and expecting this to be similar. Looking forward to every game at the minute though, hopefully another thriller we come out on the right side of.

 

[DearneValleyRover]

Dangerous Donny won four of their last five, could be a major banana skin this weekend

We are starting to gel as a team although there are still 14 players out injured and at least 7 would be in the starting lineup. Due to that we don’t seem able to string good performances together. I’m expecting us to get beat but hoping for a good performance

 

[chief]

Crawley have sold out for this, where were you all when we were shit?

Not sure what to expect out of this one. I don't expect Crawley to be as good as Mansfield but we do have some tired legs. Elliott Lee looks a shadow of the player he was earlier in the season.

Gonna be bold and predict we'll win 2-1.

 

[Pilot_Phonic]

Crawley have sold out for this, where were you all when we were shit?

Not sure what to expect out of this one. I don't expect Crawley to be as good as Mansfield but we do have some tired legs. Elliott Lee looks a shadow of the player he was earlier in the season.

Gonna be bold and predict we'll win 2-1.

Scoring away from home would be nice. 2 more away games on the trot before we're back at home (granted it's Crewe in the trophy), and would be delighted to get 4 out of the 2 league games away. Never won at Crawley either I think, and they have proven to be a lot stronger than most pre-season predictions. Another point away is not disastrous, but the quality of players we have, should be doing something to get a positive result.

 

[クレイグ]

Can't see us getting anything against Swindon. 4-1.

 

[Master D]

Crawley have sold out for this, where were you all when we were shit?

Not sure what to expect out of this one. I don't expect Crawley to be as good as Mansfield but we do have some tired legs. Elliott Lee looks a shadow of the player he was earlier in the season.

Gonna be bold and predict we'll win 2-1.

Lee is running on fumes, I'd give Davies a go in this game and would be tempted to start Fletcher instead of Palmer. No doubt Parkinson will fiddle around with the defence again despite us being quite solid last night.

I had expected 2 defeats from these 2 matches but I would take another point here tbh.

 

[JJ1990]

Salford have 2 wins from their last 2, but the Newport win seemed like a backs to the wall job and no offence to Sutton, but I think there are plenty of NL sides that would beat them currently.

Salford are missing players like McAleny, Hendry, Ashley etc, so this is a brilliant chance to get a result. I'd probably take a point now is offered, but it would be sweet to get a win there.

 

[Youpies]

Tough game away from home.

Barrow a very street wise team who I expect to have a good game plan

Think we would be quite happy with a draw but the way we play means they're quite rare

 

[The Jovial Forester]

About the best sort of fixture we could hope for if we're going to start any sort of turnaround given everyone else is better than us, Accy should still be in our sights but we've not shown any signs of sorting our problems with formation and basics.

 

[Gunit]

Salford have 2 wins from their last 2, but the Newport win seemed like a backs to the wall job and no offence to Sutton, but I think there are plenty of NL sides that would beat them currently.

Salford are missing players like McAleny, Hendry, Ashley etc, so this is a brilliant chance to get a result. I'd probably take a point now is offered, but it would be sweet to get a win there.

Offence? Biggest compliment we’ve had in some time. Could have easily said Isthmian League. Salford looked ok, nothing more. Didn’t have to be. There to be beaten I’d say.

 

[Alfie]

Is there any significance of the teams in Blue Alfie ?

None.
Apologies but I copied fixtures from another website and trimmed down some of the team's names (ie Forest Green Rovers = FGR) and forgot to shade all the teams in black.
Nothing sinister.

 

[The Jovial Forester]

Nothing sinister.

Wasn't worried before but I am now.

 

[Chris FGR]

About the best sort of fixture we could hope for if we're going to start any sort of turnaround given everyone else is better than us, Accy should still be in our sights but we've not shown any signs of sorting our problems with formation and basics.

We’ve gone off the boil in the last couple of games. Not that we were looking great before that, but we did at least show some promise at times.

Now we just look disjointed, second to every loose ball, keep misplacing passes, not marking men in the box and just genuinely making piss poor individual errors. So based on that I expect us to win comfortably at Accy….

 

[RavenBish]

Take a draw, put your mortgage on Acquah bundling one in from 4 yards

 

[AdamStag]

Another month and the table will start to take shape, you’ll always get anomalies at this early stage such as crewe and crawley up there, or forest green and tranmere down the other end, these things happen.

As for us, i’d give us a B so far, to be points wise where we are with the injuries is a cracking effort, though as i suggested a few weeks back, they’re catching up with us.

wimbledon have started well, and i’m sure will be up to avenge the 2 heavy defeats we dished out to them last season, it’ll be interesting to see if they come play. Hopefully another decent performance which this time gains the 3 points.

 

[lordofthepies]

Another month and the table will start to take shape, you’ll always get anomalies at this early stage such as crewe and crawley up there, or forest green and tranmere down the other end, these things happen.

As for us, i’d give us a B so far, to be points wise where we are with the injuries is a cracking effort, though as i suggested a few weeks back, they’re catching up with us.

wimbledon have started well, and i’m sure will be up to avenge the 2 heavy defeats we dished out to them last season, it’ll be interesting to see if they come play. Hopefully another decent performance which this time gains the 3 points.

The only anomaly about Crewe is that we're not top yet

 

[Agombar stool]

None.
Apologies but I copied fixtures from another website and trimmed down some of the team's names (ie Forest Green Rovers = FGR) and forgot to shade all the teams in black.
Nothing sinister.

No worries, thanks for putting my tiny mind to rest

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

The only anomaly about Crewe is that we're not top yet

The bigger shock is Mansfield actually making it to League One one day. Only 1 season in their last 30 spent above League Two level. We've spent 21 seasons above League Two level in that time...

 

[TrinidadsNumberOne]

Salford away. Very winnable game and we'll have a big following there. Might even outnumber the home support given most Salford fans first choice team are at home to Brentford on Saturday.

The Boxing Day game when we went there was us having a nightmare first 15 minutes which cost us the game. 2-0 down and dead and buried. Ibou Touray was class that day and tore us apart. But Salford no longer have him.

The less said about the Sambou disasterclass there last season the better.

I genuinely think we'll win. We beat a much better Salford side in dramatic circumstances last season. I personally think we're stronger now whereas they're very depleted on paper. The away form of ours still concerns me, but we should be favourites to win on Saturday and extend this excellent run of form that sees us deservedly in the Top 7 on merit.

Hoping Salford plunge into crisis and drop but the chances are slim I know. Yet if they somehow miraculously did, the tears Gary Neville sheds over it will be excellent, the horrible rat.

 

[Republic of Womble]

Another month and the table will start to take shape, you’ll always get anomalies at this early stage such as crewe and crawley up there, or forest green and tranmere down the other end, these things happen.

As for us, i’d give us a B so far, to be points wise where we are with the injuries is a cracking effort, though as i suggested a few weeks back, they’re catching up with us.

wimbledon have started well, and i’m sure will be up to avenge the 2 heavy defeats we dished out to them last season, it’ll be interesting to see if they come play. Hopefully another decent performance which this time gains the 3 points.

Could be a good game Saturday, I haven't seen us set up for anything other than trying to win so far this season so I'd be surprised if we tried playing for a draw at yours (even though I'd take it now if offered).
After dropping 9 points from winning positions against FGR, Stockport, Newport and Crewe I was worried we were slipping in to the habits of the last two seasons, but we seem to have realised we aren't good enough defensively to sit deep and try to hang on (usually unsuccessfully) to leads...

 

[Optipez]

We are starting to gel as a team although there are still 14 players out injured and at least 7 would be in the starting lineup. Due to that we don’t seem able to string good performances together. I’m expecting us to get beat but hoping for a good performance

I'm amazed how you can have fourteen injured and still put a team out, our squad just isn't big enough to cope with that many out. We'd be playing the second year apprentices who aren't even top of the Notts Alliance standard.

 

[Stocky]

I'd love to know who these 14 out are tbh. Seems a bit of an exaggeration. I challenge DVR to name them.

We have 9 out- Wootton, Hippolyte, Powell, Camps, Knoyle, Touray, Byrne, Rydel and Stretton. Some massive players there. 5 or 6 are expected back in the next few weeks so we should start looking stronger.

 

[CTFC - Devils]

Crawley have sold out for this, where were you all when we were shit?

Not sure what to expect out of this one. I don't expect Crawley to be as good as Mansfield but we do have some tired legs. Elliott Lee looks a shadow of the player he was earlier in the season.

Gonna be bold and predict we'll win 2-1.

In our defence, selling out is only an additional 1200 home fans on top of the Sutton game last week. Small ground and all that.
Half of those were bought from some weird floating Disney mob; I know of at least 5 people who go quite often and left it too late to get a ticket.

 

[Optipez]

I'd love to know who these 14 out are tbh. Seems a bit of an exaggeration. I challenge DVR to name them.

We have 9 out- Wootton, Hippolyte, Powell, Camps, Knoyle, Touray, Byrne, Rydel and Stretton. Some massive players there. 5 or 6 are expected back in the next few weeks so we should start looking stronger.

I'd love to have Kyle Wootton back at Meadow Lane. We've not exactly missed him but as an extra option up front he'd make a big difference over a season.

 

[iWomble]

wimbledon have started well, and i’m sure will be up to avenge the 2 heavy defeats we dished out to them last season, it’ll be interesting to see if they come play. Hopefully another decent performance which this time gains the 3 points.

I think we'll try to play, and expect our formation and side to be unchanged barring injuries, but will be quite happy to concede possession and make you play through us which we've been very good at preventing so far.

Looking at the stats we both create chances - you've had 200 shots (1st) to our 175 (3rd). But at the other end, neither give much away - 101 (24th) for us and 117 (21st) for you.

Given our recent record against Mansfield and Clough's record against us generally (saw us spanked for 6 once), I'd be absolutely delighted if we just cancel each other out and grab a 0-0. If we do get a point I'll begin to think we might actually stick around near the top this year.