New Year's Day 2024

[GTFCfish]

Unfair. James-Taylor also had a shot that landed in the ocean. And the fifth wasn't really a shot, hit him in the bellend and went in.

He must’ve hit it hundreds of miles wide to end up in the Ocean as the water surrounding us is the North Sea.

 

[Bianconeri 1862]

I dont know what a delay is

Delaying that first beer until at least after you've had your breakfast , can't see anyone stopping the stags now, desperate to avoid playing Chesterfield next season.

 

[saddler78]

First 30 minutes I thought we were poor but as soon as we scored they fell apart at the back and looked wide open I'm 45 and can probably run faster than Waterfall.

 

[chipmunx]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1741870930949808400

 

[Master D]

We have a forward line from League One, a defence from the National League, and a goalkeeper from the San Marino second division.

There is an element of naivety to it on the road, though… we know our defence is struggling and we’re still basically playing six upfront today. We could easily have been 4-1 upfront at half-time with a bit more luck/clinical finishing and it would’ve been fine, but it’s getting to the stage of just being mad for the sake of it.

Realistically I still think we need this season to build and sort out a defence capable of coping with this and then I we are going to be a serious threat next year, but the play-offs is there for us and it’d be stupid to throw that away completely.

But would there be any point in going into the playoffs with the naivety and let's have it right, footballing arrogance, to think you can continue to play so open at this level. Nevermind against the teams that'll be in the playoffs.

You know for a fact that Williams will never change his way of playing, better defenders might improve it a little but you'll always ship tonnes of goals at this level with his tactics. He'll always pick a keeper based on how he passes the ball rather than if he can actually save it.

 

[AdamStag]

Would never have happened under Hurst that. artell will be back on league 2 podcasts by Halloween

From how he interviewed after the mansfield game in his head he’ll reckon grimsby should’ve won 9-6 and they should’ve had 8 penalties

 

[Greenacres]

Thank fuck the bottom 4 are all dogshit.

Agreed, if we can find someone to polish our turd we might just avoid the drop!

 

[EnglishRed]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1741870930949808400

Good news. Hopefully both are absolutely fine.

 

[Stocky]

Unsure what to make of that, expected Mansfield to play us off the park but it just never happened. But they won't mind as they ground it out well.

Hopefully we can get a few bodies in. Very good news for us that Notts can't click with the players they have at their disposal, they're still our main threat for 3rd I reckon.

 

[AdamStag]

Unsure what to make of that, expected Mansfield to play us off the park but it just never happened. But they won't mind as they ground it out well.

Hopefully we can get a few bodies in. Very good news for us that Notts can't click with the players they have at their disposal, they're still our main threat for 3rd I reckon.

A lot of time to go yet, despite what the bookies say the smart money would be on wrexham, they’ll spend big again in this window and will blow anyone else out of the water, i’d be really surprised if anyone else does it.

As for Mansfield, we are going along quite nicely it’s fair to say but there’s still half the season to go and there’s going to be a lot of twists and turns to come, we’ve the dangerous crewe at home before morecambe away for instance next up.

 

[Stocky]

Another two season ending injuries to add to our list is probably the worst outcome than the result. Hope county fans are realising now there is no point talking about the title when the side playing is basically an entirely different team and style of play which put us in contention for it.

The positive is that the top three gap is closing between the playoffs and that’s all what should be important for us whilst we wait for January reinforcements and Sarc/Collar/Barry/MSH to return.

Can't see Knoyle being out for the season with a head injury. They're a scare but he'll probably be OK in a couple of weeks.

Pye will probably be a couple of months, any twist to an ankle/knee seems to just be a standard 2 month job at least now.

 

[Stocky]

David Artell is the type of manager that will go home and tell his wife he coached a 5-0 win today because his team missed the odd half chance and all the opposition goals "are individial errors" (aren't they all?)

A proper div.

 

[Master D]

Losing 1-6 at home after he's only been there 5 mins doesn't bode well. It's not the sort of thing you expect during a new manager bounce.

Walsall are a good team once they get going though, been impressed in both games against them this season.

 

[The_Viking_Magpie]

But would there be any point in going into the playoffs with the naivety and let's have it right, footballing arrogance, to think you can continue to play so open at this level. Nevermind against the teams that'll be in the playoffs.

You know for a fact that Williams will never change his way of playing, better defenders might improve it a little but you'll always ship tonnes of goals at this level with his tactics. He'll always pick a keeper based on how he passes the ball rather than if he can actually save it.

I'd be happy to be in the playoffs naively or not to find out. It's our first season back in the league, which seems to be forgotten by many. We had a small squad last season, got lucky with injuries and we're superb. This season at a higher level we still have a slimline squad, had 3 long term/season ending injuries so it's not a huge surprise.

Fine to claim it's naive, or doomed to failure but it's not footballing arrogance. Williams has been at the club a season and a half so I don't know he will never change his ways. So god knows how a Wrexham fan can. Significantly better defenders would improve it significantly IMO. Not easy in January admittedly but I trust our recruitment. Although their defensive finds are well short or their attacking and creative ones. As for goalkeeper, they have dropped the ball massively with retaining Slocombe and signing Stone. I strongly suspect all involved know that but it's football , lower league football at that, you can only hope to get the majority of signings right and we've clearly done that. And then sum...

For a serious promotion challenge we need a much better GK, and a significant upgrade in defence and midfield. We need more depth clearly. If we manage only one of those I still see us finishing top 10 in our first season back.

This season we are here to entertain.

 

[GTFCfish]

That sixth goal today absolutely killed us, up to that point I fancied us getting a draw.

 

[Gladders]

What's with the Artell hate from teams at the top? Did Stockport lose today or something?

As for us, shows the players we have are poor and we need better, a lot better. As Artell said post game we haven't won twice in a row since March, and that's a long time before he came on the scene! Lucky for us the teams below are much much worse.

 

[Conker]

First half was just two sides cancelling each other out, game was crying out for a bit of quality which we provided with the goal.

After Mansfield went 1-0 up Stockport piled on a lot of pressure and Pym had to make a few good saves and one great one, after DKD missed that open net I thought we’ll come to regret it but he ended up getting one shortly afterwards. Fans were superb, and it’s a great result.

 

[Stocky]

First half was just two sides cancelling each other out, game was crying out for a bit of quality which we provided with the goal.

After Stockport went 1-0 they piled on a lot of pressure and Pym had to make a few good saves and one great one, after DKD missed that open net I thought we’ll come to regret it but he ended up getting one shortly afterwards. Fans were superb, and it’s a great result.

Best fans I've heard at EP in years and years.

 

[lordofthepies]

Losing 1-6 at home after he's only been there 5 mins doesn't bode well. It's not the sort of thing you expect during a new manager bounce.

Walsall are a good team once they get going though, been impressed in both games against them this season.

Artell isn't the kind of manager you'd expect to get an immediate short term bounce from, he's a builder.

 

[Stocky]

Artell isn't the kind of manager you'd expect to get an immediate short term bounce from, he's a builder.

Be interesting to see how he does without an influx of high quality academy players like he had with you. He'll have to do a lot of builidng in the transfer market.

 

[Conker]

Only downsides today is Oates is in a leg brace and Johnson hamstring. The Stockport player was out cold according to Clough so I hope he makes a quick recovery

 

[lordofthepies]

Be interesting to see how he does without an influx of high quality academy players like he had with you. He'll have to do a lot of builidng in the transfer market.

Yeah, I hope his recruitment is better than it was in his final year with us... I think Grimsby have got some promising kids but they're obviously unlikely to be quite the same standard.

 

[Boz]

Very entertaining game at PP. Both sides were a bit brittle at times defensively, but Rovers set up better to protect our weaknesses. Notts probably deserved to be ahead at the break and seemed to still be on top when Apter broke and his parried effort was put in by Saunders. From then on, even despite the first penalty miss, Rovers seemed likely to see the game out.

Notts County look a decent side, the best footballing opponent we've come across. Jones had a good day today and Langstaff took his goal well. With a few tactical tweaks, they're capable of making the automatics but play-offs seem more likely.

 

[Conker]

Mansfield setting out to seriously harm someone today. First leaving Pye in a heap with a tackle from behind after twenty seconds, then trying to snap Horsfall's ankle a few minutes later.

Ridiculous thing to say.

 

[1862]

But would there be any point in going into the playoffs with the naivety and let's have it right, footballing arrogance, to think you can continue to play so open at this level. Nevermind against the teams that'll be in the playoffs.

You know for a fact that Williams will never change his way of playing, better defenders might improve it a little but you'll always ship tonnes of goals at this level with his tactics. He'll always pick a keeper based on how he passes the ball rather than if he can actually save it.

There's always point in trying the playoffs, you never know when a massive favourite will shit the bed.

Autos are probably gone in reality, there's three squads clearly better than ours is currently and they have a big points advantage too. If we recruit well this month we have a good shot at the playoffs though.

 

[GTFCfish]

Artell isn't the kind of manager you'd expect to get an immediate short term bounce from, he's a builder.

Yeah he pretty much said this in his first interview that it’s going to take a fair bit of time and we have to be patient although unfortunately, one thing our fan base is not - is patient.
Thankfully those of us who post on here seem to all get it but our social media fan base is absolutely embarrassing at times.

 

[Don Caster]

3-0, MK were awful, we were good 1st half, 2nd half expected them to come at us but they didn't really. Much needed 3 points & hopefully one step closer to the franchise going bust, strange bunch, up there with Forest Green on the inbred stakes but at least FGR achieved their league position by merit.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

Can see why Swindon rate Kemp. Young, not so much. Somebody needs to buy Austin a new dummy. He lost his when he spat it out for the forth or fifth time. Thing was he seemed to be losing it at his own team.

We won 3-1 but I think we only had four shots. Most of the fans will be sat at home thinking that was a great win. I think we sneaked it. Couple of decent saves from our keeper, couple of very poor finishes from Swindon

I think our lot need a break. There were a lot of very tired players towards the end of the game.

Casey

Two very poor teams. We were though worse than you. We were appalling and some looked as though they didn’t want to be there. Khan the principle culprit. Hoping very much that Wrexham follow up on the earlier rumour. He’s hopeless

 

[Optipez]

We have a forward line from League One, a defence from the National League, and a goalkeeper from the San Marino second division.

There is an element of naivety to it on the road, though… we know our defence is struggling and we’re still basically playing six upfront today. We could easily have been 4-1 upfront at half-time with a bit more luck/clinical finishing and it would’ve been fine, but it’s getting to the stage of just being mad for the sake of it.

Realistically I still think we need this season to build and sort out a defence capable of coping with this and then I we are going to be a serious threat next year, but the play-offs is there for us and it’d be stupid to throw that away completely.

We're throwing the season away. We've gone to an improving and confident Tranmere with six attacking players on the pitch and a keeper who's just not up to it.
There's being positive, there's being expansive but we're wide open. Felt sorry for Baldwin and Cameron, they played very well but were hung out to dry.
Tranmere looked powerful going forwards, pretty direct but with purpose. Jennings and Apter had stand out games, definitely a team on the up.

We've got to sign a keeper none at the club are good enough and it's killing us. If argue Stone was responsible at least in part for three today.

 

[Optipez]

But would there be any point in going into the playoffs with the naivety and let's have it right, footballing arrogance, to think you can continue to play so open at this level. Nevermind against the teams that'll be in the playoffs.

You know for a fact that Williams will never change his way of playing, better defenders might improve it a little but you'll always ship tonnes of goals at this level with his tactics. He'll always pick a keeper based on how he passes the ball rather than if he can actually save it.

Tactically we're ok in that it's not a high line doing us but you're right it's conceited to go to Tranmere with a back three and one holding midfielder. The other six are out and out attacking players and away from home we're getting regularly smashed. They're easy on the eye but physically small and overall a bit lightweight with some glaring weaknesses.
If we get the window right we can have a bash at the playoffs but if we don't sign a keeper and some beefy L2 standard players who know how to grind out an away draw we'll fall well short.