Match Thread Notts County vs Bradford City Saturday 18th November 2023 12:30pm

In effect we were, it's a 442 wide version. Walker and Pointon are attacking midfielders at the worst and if you recall they are apparently instructed to go wide and of course supply ammunition for the front two. So really not that much different to 424

Now of course they should then come narrow, when we've lost the ball - but it is a naive to think that's going to stop a team who literally play through the middle via 7 or 8 players.

And it's not as though we couldn't use a better system 4-3-3 would be just as creative and at least we could drop Smith.

 

We've got three decent centre backs, but for some reason we've decided to play the one who isn't that decent. I don't get this where Stubbs has gone to been our best CB since we were relegated to suddenly getting dumped. Jeez!! The late Bobby Moore would struggle if he'd been paired with Taylor back in the day.

I think Richards will be fine, if given a run. He looked OK before his injury. I remember Meredith looking just as 'green' in his first few matches with us and let's remember Halliday made an error for one of their goals.

Frankly, I couldn't care less about them getting caught out, if they attack like they did in that second half - as that make a 4-3-3 a no-brainer, which then means Pointon and Walker are far more involved.

We now have to go for wins, i.e. 18 wins (don't laugh!!) and 10 defeats is far more beneficial than say 10 wins, 14 draws and 4 defeats. So attacking full backs are the only answer.

 

I think you're been harsh on Stubbs. I've seen no evidence that he seems "seems happy to blame everyone but himself".

We do seem to quickly forget how good players were a few matches back and for me his form is definitely no worse than Cooks - who certainly does "seems happy to blame everyone but himself"

But both of them deserve their places for a few more matches, simply because we've seen what they can produce, plus all the managerial changes will not have helped.

 

County are a very vulnerable team, who don't have a Plan B (let's be honest Plan A is pretty impressive).

However they'd just lost three out of four and so it would have been very interesting to see what the outcome would have been if were set up at the start the same as in the 2nd half.

 

And if Cooks chance o make it 4.3 had gone in.

 

Glossy Plan A looks good providing they continually succeed, if they don’t , there is no alternative.

 

A massive moment. That goes in 4 times out of 5. It was a shocking miss tbf. He scores that and we get a point, I've got no doubt.

 

I’m struggling to remember a complete 90 minute performance. I’d probably go as far back as Trueman and Sellars early games when they just took over.

 

Notts were in a sticky patch and very wobbly, and it showed.

But if anyone plays as badly as we did in the first half, there's no way they're going to win a game of football.

It's impossible.