Match ratings v Woking

[LaxtonLad]

Don't we have assessors at these games? These three officials should be shoved back to Sunday league reffing for a year. It seemed at any time there was a fifty-fifty decision when a Woking player lost the ball, it turned out to have been a foul on the Woking player. I think the referee realised too late he should have given a penalty when whoever-it-was handled the ball so made up for it by denying one for us. Both incidents missed by the linesman - sh1t refereeing by any standards.

[Mark_Ross]

The impression I get - overall and smoothing out the outliers - is that, essentially, considering this is level V and we were up against an average side - is that we were shyte.

[chedozie]

Basically that is a very good impression.

[Mark_Ross]

[pingu_pie]

It seems that we both went to the same game, as by and large, I'd agree not only with the ratings but the comments on the game and the referee, as well.

I was of this impression too, I have to say. We weren't fantastic after the first ten minutes, but I thought we could have had all three points without too much complaint for the game as a whole. Those three headers they had in the second half though could have seen them take it too.

I don't know how this resolves itself. There appears to be a large group of fans who don't like Ardley and this style of football, and, unless the only thing that has ever made Notts fans collectively happy - running away with a division - happens, it's just going to go up and down based on the last result. The problem is, Notts fans to my mind only ever really like the opposite of what we have. If we have a long ball merchant it's boring and gives you neckache, if it's passing football it's boring and we need to "gerritforwardyoof".

From what I've seen of us, the style works to a certain degree; you could see at the start that with a bit of patience we would create a little bit of space in the middle, and often this led to a run with the ball up the middle from JOB, Rawlinson or Bird and I thought Woking looked terrified and we made chances from that. Combined with Roberts' work on the wing, and Enzio when he is having a better game than he did Saturday, we are dangerous like that. If Wootton and JOB took those two good chances in the first half, we could have had four again as we did at their place. I certainly disagree with those saying the weather conditions meant playing out from the back was the wrong idea - with the wind as it was, and Wootton winning nothing in the air, every time someone whacked it long it came straight back. It was definitely a ball on the ground game for me.

The downside, of course, is being able to maintain that when a team comes at us. I don't think we need to abandon the passing game, but we need to be able to vary it at that point to get the space to build from. I'd like to see the occasional random use of something different to try and back teams off when they do this - Bird is useful for this, as he looks like a reliable passer of longer balls out from the back every time I see him. Then there's always the silly mistakes with the passing, but that's part and parcel of being in the fifth tier I suppose.

I still think playing like that we will win more than we draw, and draw more than we lose, and we should end up in the playoffs. On our day we ought to be able to go toe to toe with anyone else in the playoffs, so let's get in there and get confident and hopefully get it done.

PS The ref was abysmal. Another game that could easily have had a very different result if officiated competently.

[nw6pie]

I was of this impression too, I have to say. We weren't fantastic after the first ten minutes, but I thought we could have had all three points without too much complaint for the game as a whole. Those three headers they had in the second half though could have seen them take it too.

I don't know how this resolves itself. There appears to be a large group of fans who don't like Ardley and this style of football, and, unless the only thing that has ever made Notts fans collectively happy - running away with a division - happens, it's just going to go up and down based on the last result. The problem is, Notts fans to my mind only ever really like the opposite of what we have. If we have a long ball merchant it's boring and gives you neckache, if it's passing football it's boring and we need to "gerritforwardyoof".

From what I've seen of us, the style works to a certain degree; you could see at the start that with a bit of patience we would create a little bit of space in the middle, and often this led to a run with the ball up the middle from JOB, Rawlinson or Bird and I thought Woking looked terrified and we made chances from that. Combined with Roberts' work on the wing, and Enzio when he is having a better game than he did Saturday, we are dangerous like that. If Wootton and JOB took those two good chances in the first half, we could have had four again as we did at their place. I certainly disagree with those saying the weather conditions meant playing out from the back was the wrong idea - with the wind as it was, and Wootton winning nothing in the air, every time someone whacked it long it came straight back. It was definitely a ball on the ground game for me.

The downside, of course, is being able to maintain that when a team comes at us. I don't think we need to abandon the passing game, but we need to be able to vary it at that point to get the space to build from. I'd like to see the occasional random use of something different to try and back teams off when they do this - Bird is useful for this, as he looks like a reliable passer of longer balls out from the back every time I see him. Then there's always the silly mistakes with the passing, but that's part and parcel of being in the fifth tier I suppose.

I still think playing like that we will win more than we draw, and draw more than we lose, and we should end up in the playoffs. On our day we ought to be able to go toe to toe with anyone else in the playoffs, so let's get in there and get confident and hopefully get it done.

PS The ref was abysmal. Another game that could easily have had a very different result if officiated competently.

I’m afraid I’m from the Warnock school of thought - you play your football in the opposition’s half and not your own. The way we were constantly trying to play out on Saturday bordered on suicidal at times and a better team would have taken advantage. The chance for Wootton came from playing out from the back; the JOB chance came from playing the ball into the corner and winning the ball back in their half. Mix it up and don’t become so predictable.