⚽ Match Thread vs. Shrewbury Town FC 01.12.23 [FAC R2]

[Jeekay56]

Well said. It's all well and good people bemoaning the team selection but let's remember we played Wimbledon Sat, Crawley Tue and Shrewsbury Fri. That's 3 games in 6 days.

No it's not!

[Elite_Pie]

We lost to a poor side tonight, but it was entirely self-inflicted. Playing such a weak team annoyed me, but we still had more than enough to beat them without the defensive howlers. We are used to gifting one goal a game, but THREE??? We created far more chances for them than they did, it was almost as if we didn't want to be in the next round. I'm seriously pissed off after watching that.

[Eastcoastultra1977]

Well said. It's all well and good people bemoaning the team selection but let's remember we played Wimbledon Sat, Crawley Tue and Shrewsbury Fri. That's 3 games in 6 days.

I know we could have got a lucrative tie in the third round, but then on the other hand we could have got another league two or league one side. We will never know.

I didn't want to see Crowley, McGoldrick, Langstaff, Jones all on the pitch for the full 90 min with the risk of them picking up injuries. We've got a busy period coming up with six league games over the course of three weeks starting next Saturday and for me those games are the priority.

Besides that side tonight was good enough to win that game and the Shrewsbury player who scored the hattrick will have got the easiest one of his career in professional football for that I've no doubt. Three mistakes cost us.

It's done it's gone and now as the old saying goes we can concentrate on the league and we've got 26 league games to focus on now with no further distractions. Let's have a cup run another year when we might not have injuries to key players.

..but his hat trick had to be against Notts didn't it? 12 goals in 20 league games they have scored this season !!! I bet he thinks he's 'arrived'....'he aint.

[jackal2]

Unbelievably crass defensive errors cost us the game and potentially a big pay-day. We should have won that 2-0.

Notts dominated and played well for most of the 90 minutes, but you can't have players who go by the description 'central defenders' or 'back three' making the kind of errors ours do, game after game.

If there were signs of improvement and fewer errors being made as time went on, then maybe you could make allowances for them being "brave/creative on the ball", but a team can't keep absorbing the kind of sloppiness we're seeing time and again, especially when you remember that there have been various other errors that haven't led to goals, more by luck than judgement.

As another poster says above, you have to reach a point where you say enough is enough and you either change the personnel, or play more conservatively in defensive positions to reflect the vulnerabilities and limitations of the players at your disposal.

On the plus side tonight, I thought Dan Gosling looked far fitter and more in tune with the team, and he and Bostock give us far more physical presence and height in midfield, not to mention ability some way above League Two level.

I agreed with the MoM for Sam Austin, back in arguably his best attacking midfield position and proving that he's one of the best crossers of the ball at the club. You could see he was much more confident in everything he did and was central to many of our best attacking moves, whereas in the deeper role in recent weeks he has looked comparatively ineffective if not lost.

All in all, a damn shame. Much to admire in our general play against League One opposition, but also proof that if we take that defence into League One, against players who will take full advantage of such ridiculous errors, we'll get eaten alive. Whether it's personnel or tactical improvements, that problem needs addressing.

[marky]

Shrewsbury are crap and will finish about 18th in League One, Lincoln and Derby were far better than them.

[Eastcoastultra1977]

We need a new keeper too.

Slocombe and Stone are useless.

We need a keeper who TALKS and ORGANISES the back line.Neither know what each other are doing.

[Proactive not Reactive]

I expect him to play macari and Tipton together. They cannot be worse than Backpass brindley, balls-up Baldwin, captain calamity, or rotten Rawlinson

Mapperley Pie was you at the game ?
Did you see Tipton when he came on ?

[Stall is God]

I don't think it's a case of "no recruitment", but more "phased recruitment".

Self-evidently we invested heavily in attack-minded players in the summer. We took advantage of an exceptional opportunity to sign a player who wouldn't normally be found at our level in David McGoldrick, who even in taking a pay cut will still be a high earner by Notts' standards. We also signed Dan Crowley, who again won't have come cheap for wages, but who has proven to be an exceptional signing.

This investment probably came at the expense of investment in the defence, to a degree, but those are the resource limitations we face compared with, say, Wrexham, who might have more money to upgrade all parts of the team in one go.

We've got a team with plenty of attacking threat and goal-power, which has been key to making us very competitive in this league, but it probably means we'll have to wait for the January transfer window, and next summer (when certain out of contract players depart) in order for sufficient wages to be freed up to recruit the kind of quality in defence/midfield that we gained in attack last summer.

We're no different to most other League Two clubs in that respect, you have to evolve the squad gradually, in phases. You can't just write out cheques or sustain a wage budget to address all areas at once, especially when you're trying to recruit real quality.

Excellently put, my thoughts entirely.

[ajojones]

We lost to a poor side tonight, but it was entirely self-inflicted. Playing such a weak team annoyed me, but we still had more than enough to beat them without the defensive howlers. We are used to gifting one goal a game, but THREE??? We created far more chances for them than they did, it was almost as if we didn't want to be in the next round. I'm seriously pissed off after watching that.

A famous prolific striker once moaned about his defence letting in more than they could score, even if his team scored 4 the defence would concede 5. Very frustrating indeed with what's on offer next round.

[nw6pie]

The most annoying thing about tonight is that Shrewsbury’s anti-football won because of our calamitous defending. In the whole game, I’m not sure if they put together a single good move, yet they didn’t need to do anything decent to score three goals. Diabolical.

Sam Austin and James Sanderson (and maybe Chicksen) are the only Notts players who can proud of their efforts tonight.

I didn’t see much to get excited about in Dan Gosling, but maybe that’s because I wanted a midfielder to drive forward and be looking to make things happen (Bostock wasn’t much better apart from one great run towards the end). Nemane yet again showed he’s lost in that right-sided midfield role, while Randall has yet to show that he can beat a full back and put a decent cross in. He had one good run where with a bit of composure he could have scored, but otherwise offered nothing - and started the rot with a sloppy back pass to Baldwin, though of course couldn’t have predicted what would happen next (unless he’s seen Notts play before this season, of course).