QUESTION: Do we have the quality to get automatic promotion?

[nay123]

No the answer is on twitter ah very quiet

[slack_pie]

No, I don't think so. Even when we were safely in the top two I didn't feel like we looked like a promotion-winning side. A lot of the games I saw in the first few months we were pretty lucky - looked average or poor until a game-changing decision went for us, like a penalty or sending off. I always felt like we were going to get found out eventually.

January was always going to be make or break. I think if we'd kept Yates and Bennett hadn't got injured we'd stand half a chance, but alas it wasn't to be. Husin looks a good addition, but not enough to drive us forward yet.

The big questions now is whether we can do enough to finish in the playoffs. At this rate I think we may end up missing out. It all depends on what happens in those big home games against Mansfield, Coventry, Wycombe and Luton, who are all in better form than us. Luton and Mansfield simply have much better squads than we do.

[Proudpie]

Just got home from Newport
For the second Saturday in a row:
Spent best part of £150
Saw no Notts goals
Saw two very poor sides
Saw little or no football
Sat in a very soul less stadium

Notts again content to hit Stead and see what happened from there.
Numerous players went missing again
Cant string 4 passes together.

Poor player recruitment in the summer and especially in January have come home to roost.

Notts have needed a proven scorer for years - not addressed it.
Lack of pace - not addressed it

Automatic Promotion no chance
Playoffs - might blag it if others go off the boil.

[BigFatPie]

Why was it a disaster ? Everybody agreed we needed a striker and a CH. Bennett looked good in his cameo but unfortunately is now injured .Hall looked good on Tuesday and even better today. That lad is class. No, i don't think we have enough to carry us over the line ( play offs at best ) but it ain't nothing to do with what we did in the transfer window , it's about what we started the season with.

Not seen Hall play yet, but he sounds like a good addition.

On the minus side, we obviously lost Ryan Yates who had been our best player. He’s been replaced by a mix and match of midfielders, who’ve each contributed, but none of whom are currently fit to lace Yates’ boots. Up front we missed out on a whole load of strikers we were after, and instead ended up with an injury prone player who’s since got injured.

So yeah, in terms of a team going for promotion, it’s looking pretty disastrous.

[nw6pie]

We’re missing a match winner other than Stead at the moment. Grant’s goals have dried up, Shola’s never been prolific and Yates was the next top scorer.

We sit 14th in the form guide for the last six games - and while we’ve only got 7 points in that time, Wycombe have got 16, Mansfield 15 and Accrington 13, and have slipped from 2nd to 5th. Worst thing is we didn’t have a hard set of fixtures.

Four of the next six games are away, and we’ve failed to score in our last two away games (and barely looked like scoring). Here are the next set of games:

Cambridge - A
Stevenage - H
Cheltenham - A
F Green Rovers - A
Mansfield - H
Chesterfield - A

Anything less than 12 points will be a poor return, but I’m not confident we’ll pick up more than another 7 points. Hope I’m proved wrong.

[MAD_MAGPIE]

Just got home from Newport
For the second Saturday in a row:
Spent best part of £150
Saw no Notts goals
Saw two very poor sides
Saw little or no football
Sat in a very soul less stadium

Notts again content to hit Stead and see what happened from there.
Numerous players went missing again
Cant string 4 passes together.

Poor player recruitment in the summer and especially in January have come home to roost.

Notts have needed a proven scorer for years - not addressed it.
Lack of pace - not addressed it

Automatic Promotion no chance
Playoffs - might blag it if others go off the boil.

I don’t think it would have been unreasonable to have hoped for 4 points from Barnet and Newport away. Certainly 1 point from those two games is disappointing as a team going for automatic promotion.

That coupled with the home defeats to Crawley and Exeter are why we’ve slipped from 2nd to 5th in recent weeks.

[optipez]

We'll need 84/5 points for automatics, that's 9 wins from 13 games.
From the next six that nw6pie posted we need four wins and a draw to remain on target. That is quite a big upturn in form for a team that has looked poor for the last couple of months. Do-able but unlikely, sadly.

[tarquinbeech]

Just got home from Newport
For the second Saturday in a row:
Spent best part of £150
Saw no Notts goals
Saw two very poor sides
Saw little or no football
Sat in a very soul less stadium

Notts again content to hit Stead and see what happened from there.
Numerous players went missing again
Cant string 4 passes together.

Poor player recruitment in the summer and especially in January have come home to roost.

Notts have needed a proven scorer for years - not addressed it.
Lack of pace - not addressed it

Automatic Promotion no chance
Playoffs - might blag it if others go off the boil.

Well done for your support...but along with Navy, have highlighted that we are simply not good enough with Stead on his own up front....what I have watched in the last 5 or 6 games on iFollow is strictly mid~table stuff.....I keep trying to be positive but unless we win on Tuesday, then I feel that we have blown it this season......such a shame after the incredible start we had...COYP

[i961pie]

How can a disaster be an understatement? Please tell me what you consider worse than a disaster.

You posting another political thread

[kill_the_drum]

The quality of the squad was never good enough compared to the likes of Luton and Mansfield, and the strength in depth is probably the worst in the top 7.
However here we are still much higher than any fan would have dreamed after that opening 3-0 loss to Coventry.
Quality alone doesn’t win you games. We need to get back to grinding out results and hope that the wheels fall off for a couple of the teams around us.