Was that the final nail in the coffin?

[TSANHO]

First nail in the coffin was not securing O’Connor for this season....Our Captain and about the only player we had who could run a midfield properly, Lincoln got a right bargain!

The rest is just a catalogue of errors. I thought we would get relegated against Mk Dons not long ago, we deserve to go down, we should go down....but I’ve just a feeling we will somehow, I don’t know how, manage to stay up once more. Probably too much vitamin D over the weekend.

[Nigel_M]

Not replacing Ameobi. We've played all season without a proper No9 and wasted Krystian Dennis and Hemmings as a result.

Agreed.

Starting the season without a target man, a league standard goalkeeper and a quality set piece taker were terrible mistakes. Not rectifying these mistakes in January was incomprehensible.

[Trickytreesreds]

Rubbish. Did you not attend the pre-season game at Rolls Royce where we scored at will against the pub team and never remotely looked like conceding???? To be serious, that game is only second to beating the inbreds as a season highlight.

Yes the pub team. A Sunday pub team at that.
Everyone assumed it was Rolls/Linby Colliery fixture.
How anyone can believe a league club, was getting prepared for a season with a game like that was beyond me.
Some in here said it didn't matter, it's all about fitness and crowed how Notts scored at will. It just fueled the, we can win the title cries even more.
It's quite shocking and outrageous really, how it was allowed to even start like this.

[Elite_Pie]

Some in here said it didn't matter, it's all about fitness and crowed how Notts scored at will. It just fueled the, we can win the title cries even more.
It's quite shocking and outrageous really, how it was allowed to even start like this.

You be "shocked and outraged" if you wish, I'll be one of those who say it didn't matter. It was a very, very gentle training exercise to start the season. The impact it had on how sh!t we've been in the 50 odd games after it is zero.

[Elite_Pie]

First nail in the coffin was not securing O’Connor for this season....

And the second was probably not trying to re- sign Neal Bishop to play alongside him.

Oops, I forgot. He's a journeyman in his late thirties so would have been a waste of a squad place!

[MancMagpie]

Could be the final nail. If we lose Saturday and Macc draw, it's all over because of goal difference. They both look like the most likely scenarios unfortunately. It's out of our hands and has been for a while.

[LaxtonLad]

It's a combination of several of the posts above:

Poor selection of pre-season friendlies, easy wins over Sunday pub teams gave us a sense of false security, and hard losses against Championship ones destroyed any building confidence.

Not replacing Ameobi, clearly he was missed as THE target man. We should have replaced him and Stead with one proper centre-
forward and used Hemmings and Dennis to feed off him. Stead was expected to fill the No.9 shirt but he's not 9ft tall, and his leaping days are behind him.

Schofield and Barclay were no improvement on what we already had. If it was thought neccessary to replace Fitz, there are better and more experienced goalkeepers than Schofield around, and there is no difference in quality between Barclay and Brisley.

Not hiring a Director of Football. Nolan's pre-season signings (and lack of them in defence) showed he had no idea of how to assemble a team of League 2 quality footballers. Alan Hardy apparantly had an input here, his obvious delight in being able to sign a Liverpool player (Virtue-Thick) on loan meant Nolan had to play him - and he didn't do a thing.

I could carry on, naming players brought in who should never have been and I'm sure we all have an opinion on who they might be. The fact is though, that their very presence has given us a bloated squad and is upping the wage bill to the point where we might have to get rid of quality (or at least not sign any) to save losses in revenue in the non-league times.

[irishpete]

It's a combination of several of the posts above:

Poor selection of pre-season friendlies, easy wins over Sunday pub teams gave us a sense of false security, and hard losses against Championship ones destroyed any building confidence.

Not replacing Ameobi, clearly he was missed as THE target man. We should have replaced him and Stead with one proper centre-
forward and used Hemmings and Dennis to feed off him. Stead was expected to fill the No.9 shirt but he's not 9ft tall, and his leaping days are behind him.

Schofield and Barclay were no improvement on what we already had. If it was thought neccessary to replace Fitz, there are better and more experienced goalkeepers than Schofield around, and there is no difference in quality between Barclay and Brisley.

Not hiring a Director of Football. Nolan's pre-season signings (and lack of them in defence) showed he had no idea of how to assemble a team of League 2 quality footballers. Alan Hardy apparantly had an input here, his obvious delight in being able to sign a Liverpool player (Virtue-Thick) on loan meant Nolan had to play him - and he didn't do a thing.

I could carry on, naming players brought in who should never have been and I'm sure we all have an opinion on who they might be. The fact is though, that their very presence has given us a bloated squad and is upping the wage bill to the point where we might have to get rid of quality (or at least not sign any) to save losses in revenue in the non-league times.

We had a DOF. He is the Chairman