The Magpies were beaten by Halifax on Tuesday night, leaving them without a win in four games, but they are still very much in the thick of the National League promotion race.
Notts County’s squad held their own private summit meeting at training today as Neal Ardley insisted togetherness would be crucial to get their promotion push back on track.
Amid mounting concern over performances, the players held their own talks which lasted an hour in a bid to arrest a run of four league games without a win.
Notts are still very much in the thick of the promotion race having lost just two of their last 12 games, but since the fabulous 3-1 win over Dagenham last month they have struggled to recapture that form.
Ardley says he has done plenty of soul searching in the 48 hours since the defeat to Halifax on Tuesday night which prompted a strong reaction on social media.
And the Magpies boss understands the concern over the performances in recent weeks.
“The players are good and have had their own meeting,” he said.
“After the game on Tuesday, I said if they wanted to get together and have a chat, they could and they did that for a good hour on Thursday.
“It was just them which is good and they aired a few things.
“I’ve had my own meeting with myself yesterday and I get the disappointment from the fans. It hurts so much as a manager. I don’t just brush it off and get over it quickly.
"I’m living away from the family, I haven’t got them around me. It was a wet, miserable day, I couldn’t even go for a walk and I’m sitting there with my own thoughts and it hurts.
“You can’t wait to get back to work to try to get that nice feeling back but it’s going to take a lot of effort.
“It’s going to take togetherness and all I try to work on within this group is togetherness from the staff down.
“We’re in it together and there is no blame culture. I take full responsibility and I will do everything I can to get the best out of this group of players and get them firing again.”
Notts comfortably boast the best defensive record in the division having conceded just 19 goals all season, but it is their offensive capabilities that are the immediate concern.
They are the lowest scorers in the top 15 teams in the league with King’s Lynn, who are third from bottom in the table, having scored more goals than the 29 Notts have registered this term.
Striker Kyle Wootton has accounted for 12 of them and is currently the second top scorer in the division, but Ardley says others have to share the responsibility.
“It is not something that I’m burying my head in the sand about,” he said.
“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see our goals for column to see that we’re not creating enough, we’re not scoring enough.
“And when we do Kyle Wootton is the man who is doing it.
“We lost Kristian Dennis last summer and we didn’t want to lose him. He had double figures last season. We lost Wes Thomas who was double figures too. Cal Roberts is another player we’ve lost who would score double figures.
“Now these are all players that we haven’t had and there is probably over 30 goals there. There’s no magic wand behind it.
“I need to try to help them score goals and get us into the right areas more often. We will work on it.
“We’re humans, we make mistakes, we get things wrong. We’re going through a sticky spell. Our confidence has been shot a little bit.
“We’ve got to pick ourselves up, flex our muscles, be brave and tough and battle our way through it. Whether it will happen Saturday, whether it will happen Tuesday, we’ve got enough games to do it and turn it on its head.”
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https://www.nottinghampost.com/sport/football/football-news/notts-county-players-crisis-meeting-5137834
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