Notts are still 2nd in the table

[durhampie]

Ricardo Moniz tried to get the team playing plenty of expansive football, with the opportunity for gifted players like Stanley Aborah to express themselves, but unfortunately it didn't produce enough good results in this league.

I wouldn't say Kevin Nolan is a total long ball merchant, because there have been spells in most games where we have knocked the ball around quite nicely, and we are playing with some width after all, but certainly we are happy to play a direct style and the team generally looks disciplined and well organised. The evidence so far is that this is coming closer to producing the results we need to challenge for promotion, so it's a case of 'if it works, go with it'. The performances at Crewe and Mansfield weren't good enough, but generally we seem to be better at winning games by the odd goal even when we've not played particularly well. Under Moniz, we often seemed to have the reverse case of playing quite well and losing heavily.

We kept losing because he didn't put any emphasis on defending...

[LaxtonLad]

We kept losing because he didn't put any emphasis on defending...

Yep, let's sign that Memphis feller like Moniz should have, we need him.

[MAD_MAGPIE]

We kept losing because he didn't put any emphasis on defending...

Which has been one of our major problems for the past five years up and till this season. This is one area that KN has certainly sorted out and addressed overall this season so far.

The games we have lost Coventry, Mansfield and Crewe have seen us ship 8 goals. So that means in the other 11 games we have conceded 7 goals and kept 6 clean sheets. We would be lucky to keep six clean sheets in a season.

As I've said before the clean sheet is what wins titles and in my opinion has played a major part in why we are 2nd in the league. If you can be tough to break down and hard to beat then you are halfway to being there or thereabouts.

13 players have scored goals so far this season. So there are goals throughout the side. To make us a top side what we need to improve the way I see it is the number of goals from the strikers, but then every club is in the same boat (apart from Luton who seem to score for fun)

[i961pie]

Which has been one of our major problems for the past five years up and till this season. This is one area that KN has certainly sorted out and addressed overall this season so far.

The games we have lost Coventry, Mansfield and Crewe have seen us ship 8 goals. So that means in the other 11 games we have conceded 7 goals and kept 6 clean sheets. We would be lucky to keep six clean sheets in a season.

As I've said before the clean sheet is what wins titles and in my opinion has played a major part in why we are 2nd in the league. If you can be tough to break down and hard to beat then you are halfway to being there or thereabouts.

13 players have scored goals so far this season. So there are goals throughout the side. To make us a top side what we need to improve the way I see it is the number of goals from the strikers, but then every club is in the same boat (apart from Luton who seem to score for fun)

The problem with shipping those 8 goals in those 3 games is that 2 of those are recent matches, what's the old saying you are only as good as your last game. Defeat on Saturday will certainly set the doubters off.