I'm NOTTS crazy

[Blarney]

FA Cup

Fourth Round Qualifier

from Meadow Lane

defensive match

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be happy or sad.

I"m happy we held Charlton scoreless.... but sad we didn't score.

I'm happy that we get another shot at them... and sad at the same time because it's just another match to play.

Honestly Charlton probably outplayed us but we kept them out of the goal.  They beat us in shots, shots on target and possession but our defense stood stury when needed.

So we go again.

Edited September 12 by Blarney

[Blarney]

FA Cup

Fourth Round Qualifier - part deux

from The Valley, London

so close

We just couldn't shoot.

Credit to Charlton for just shutting us down though.

But credit to my defense as well, even though Charlton got 21 shots off they only got 1 in the net.

On another note... Charlton is my 2nd favorite club in England behind Notts County!

Edited September 12 by Blarney

[Blarney]

February in Review

Schedule

Not a great month, could have been worse.  We played well but lost in our FA Cup match in the replay.  Then we lost a league match, got a draw and finally pulled out a win -- which was our first in 6 league matches.

Table

We are now just 11 points up on 4th place but 20 from falling out of playoff contention so we're in a good spot still but our recent form has definitely brought us back to the pack.

League Two Team Stats

Not much to say here, holding our own but not really at the top of anything.  Our conversion rate has been steady.

Swindon has overtaken us in average attendance.

League Two Player Stats

Langstaff is lapping the league in goals scored now almost.

**It'll be interesting to see how he does in The Championship this season since moving on from Notts.  Still one of my favorite players although I'm very disappointed he left.**

Financials

Money is okay, we're slowly getting a little better.  I have a feeling we'll be selling some more players off this coming season as well.

Review

We hit a small rough patch over the course of the last 6 matches where we ended up with just 1 victory.  Our offense slowed down while our defense remained steady.  We had that same issue last season where it just seemed like we lost our way.  I really tried to win the Charlton match and put my best guys out there for those 2 matches and then we played Mansfield - a rival - right after and we were just exhausted so I sat pretty much everybody down and put a full backup squad out there.  That loss is on me but I needed to rest my players after 2 grueling FA Cup matches.  I also messed with our tactics a little just to mix things up and that might have not worked out well but I'm always going to tinker, especially with us being on top as we try to find the right mix going forward.  We're still in a good spot, I'm not concerned at this point of losing a playoff spot if nothing more.  Although I know I said I'd prefer not to go up this season just so we could spend a year growing... now that we're up here it's not like I want to see the club fail.

[Blarney]

Denied

Tried pressing my luck a little and it failed.  Our youth facilities are still below average and I want them improved but maybe asking for it to get fixed again twice in one season might have been a bit much, especially after they just upgraded our recruitment as well.

I did "push" them but backed down before it got too far.

I'll wait until next season and try again.

[Blarney]

March in Review

Schedule

Our poor play continued through the first 2 matches this month and then we righted ourselves and won the final 3 league matches in pretty convincing form.... and Langstaff scoring 6 goals in those 3 matches.  It further proves how Langstaff goes this season... so do we.  I'm not sure that's entirely a good thing but we'll take it while he's here.

Table

With our victory against Crawley in the final game of the month we secured a playoff spot -- if nothing else for the season.  The board was very happy.

We are also 14 points up on the 4th spot so looking pretty good for an automatic promotion given the games remaining this season.

League Two Team Stats

I'm not even worried about our offensive numbers this year as it's the 2nd year in a row where our defense has been the driving force in our victories.

League Two Player Stats

Have we said it's Langstaff's world and we're just living in it before?

Financials

Ouch, we lost a little bit of cash this month.

Review

In the previous 8 league matches - including the first 2 this month - we had 1 win, 3 draws and 4 losses.  We had definitely lost our way.

Hopefully the last 3 matches of the month are an indicator of finding it again.

If nothing else we're in the playoffs.

[Blarney]

April/May in Review

Schedule

We wrapped up a playoff spot in April... and we wrapped up the league title in the FINAL GAME of the season with a 2-1 win over Tranmere.

Table

Barrow pushed us to the end, even beating us in the 2nd to last match of the season but we won in the final match and won the league.

We are the champions!

Barrow, Mansfield and Tranmere all won promotion as well.  Port Vale and Harrogate went down.  Chesterfield finished 19th but they stayed up.

League Two Team Stats

We didn't have the best offensive season but we didn't have the worst either.  We did play excellent defense though.

A little disappointed we were only 2nd in average attendance considering the season we had.

League Two Player Stats

All hail King Langstaff --- who wants a massive new conract or will demand his release.

Review

Well we did it.  We won the league.  Back-to-back champions!

It took until the final season to get the title but we really weren't in much danger all season long of at least not making the playoffs.  We definitely were amongst the class of the league.  We had 2 things going for us... Langstaff and a very tight defense.  Sort of the same things we had going for us last season.

We've already had several of our players come forward and say they want new contracts, including Langstaff... so we'll have decisions to make in the off-season but for now we're going to relish this championship and hopefully parlay it into a nice shiny new contract for me.

[Blarney]

Season Review

100

A small milestone

Manager of the Year

That's back-to-back.  I'll take it.

Golden Boot

Langstaff with back-to-back-to-back golden boots at the last 3 levels... incredible!

Player of the Season

+ 

And back-to-back-to-back Player of the Season awards as well.

Golden Glove

Kovacevic wins the Golden Glove.  He was simply outstanding all year long for us.

Top Eleven

Langstaff and Kovacevic with well deserved honors, earning a spot on the Top 11 list.

Season Stats

Defense wins championships.  We were first in goals conceded this year and 2nd in clean sheets.

[Blarney]

Langstaff

We decided to reward Macauley with a shiny new contract given his status on our team.... and other clubs desire to sign him.

We received multiple offers for him, including a 2.5 million transfer fee from Nottingham Forest and a 3 million transfer fee from Blackburn.

He was really hinting that he wanted to move to a larger club so we sat down with him and his agent and hashed out the biggest player contract we've ever offered.

And we think he's well worth it.

He's a 3 time Player of the Season and 3 time Golden Boot winner and without a doubt the heart and soul of our club.

And now we've got him for 4 more years...... or until he demands another contract and a Premier League Club comes knocking.

[Blarney]

Other News

Youth Facilities

The board can't make up their mind.  After telling me no... they actually came to me and offered to upgrade the youth facilities.

I of course said yes, please.

I guess that's the prize for winning League Two.

U21

They also agreed to an Under 21 team.

It'll give me an opportunity to acquire some more players and increase our overall depth.

 

[Blarney]

New Contract

they like me, they really like me

A shiny new 3-year contract at 3500 per week.

I'm very happy.

[Blarney]

Off-Season Moves

Transferred Out

Aljofree never really caught on with us.  He was pretty far back on the depth chart so was expendable when the right offer came along.

Dinzy was one of my first signings - if not the first.  But over time he just didn't develop like we needed and we had brought in better players.

Nemane as here when I took over and was a big part of us getting promoted.  However he was more a backup option last season and with youngsters coming up wouldn't see much playing time this year.

This one I'm a little mad about.  Not that we moved him but that we had a 850k offer last year for him which the board cancelled because they said he was worth a little over 1 million.  Of course we never got an offer for him anywhere near that and didn't end up moving him last season... and then ended up having to settle for 650k this season.

Transferred In

Our only real signing this season is Finley Munroe who may end up being our starter at the right wing back position this year.

We did bring in a few youngsters as well as we continue to stock up on young players in our continuing rebuilding efforts.

New Contracts

And we previously reported this but it was the big move of the off-season for us.  Signing Langstaff was an absolute must so I'm glad we got it done.

There are a couple of other contracts we might need to redo also... but this was the big one.

[Blarney]

Predictions

Golden Boot

Can you say 4 times Golden Boot winner?  Well if the bookies are right, you will be.

Player of the Season

Nobody from our club made this list.  That's okay, we're used to being overlooked.

Predicted Finish

Well if the bookies are right, we should be safe but it looks like they expect a battle all season long to stay away from relegation.

I'd like to see us finish more comfortably in the middle of the pack, but I'll take staying up by the slimmest of margins.

[Blarney]

Meet the Squad

Forwards

This is still Langstaff's spot but we do have a few youngsters that could grow into the position.  And since we play with 2 center-attackers, there is plenty of opportunity here for our kids to see playing time.  We tried to sign another striker in the off-season but he chose to go elsewhere and there's really nobody else I saw that I felt like spending money on.

Midfield

Our main tactic uses 2 defensive-mids and 2 wing-backs... so overall we have pretty good depth that we can rotate around.  Davis and newcomer Munroe will play on the outside with Baj, Robinson and Kirby spending most of the season splitting time in the middle.

Backs

And here's where our strength lies in our club.  Our backs have been very good.  Baj bounces back and forth between the midfield and the backfield.  McClelland, Quamina, Kavanagh have been rocks on the defensive line.

Keepers

Kovaceciv was the best keeper in the league last season in League Two.  My concern is that may be his peak and we haven't found anybody else on the market that we think is better than him.  Granted it all starts on the defensive line, but having a good keeper backing them up is a necessity.  Hopefully he'll have another good season, because I think we're going to need it with much more difficult competition.

Review

I think we're going to have a much more difficult season this year as I view the competition level between League One and League Two to be pretty significant.  I hope that Langstaff continues his excellent career because I think the rest of my guys up front are going to need a season or 2 to find their footing.  In the middle we should be okay but as far as depth goes but I don't really see any stars there.  We're probably better on the wing than we are in the middle.  For 2 seasons we have relied heavily on our defense but like I said, I think we're going to be facing much tougher competition this year, so it will be a big test to see if that remains a strength.  And as far as our keeper situation...... it's Kovacevic or bust.  He was really good last season, it will remain to be seen if he's League One quality.  I think he'll be fine, coupled with the rest of our defense should be enough to keep us in most games but I expect it will be much more of a challenge than we've previously faced.

[Blarney]

Season Budget

We finally have some money to spend, which is awesome, because we're not going to spend it.

At least the plan is not to spend it.

I don't really want to touch the transfer budget unless I find someone that I just HAVE to have.

We also have a wage budget of just over 67K of which we are currently spending just over 55K, so we have a little wiggle room there.

That's also after we've given a few of our players some nice raises (like Mac)... so it's good that we're still under budget that.

That plan is to keep accumulating cash as we advance up the ladder to where we have the money to bring in "game-changers" as we need them at the upper levels.

I really didn't want to spend much until we got to the Championship, so we're trending in the right direction curently.

[Blarney]

August in Review

Schedule

Other than the loss in the Carabao Cup match we had a pretty decent start to our League One season with a couple of draws and a win.

I will admit in both of our draws we pulled it out with last minute goals... but last minute is better than a loss.

Table

Our start has been good enough to put us up toward the top of the table. 

League One Team Stats

Offensive stats look pretty decent to start the season.

League One Player Stats

WHAT????  Langstaff isn't leading the league in goals.... oh no.

Financials

Lost a little cash to start the season.

Review

So like I seem to always say at the start of the new season, it's early.  I don't take much stock in how things are going to finish by how they start.  However, it's always good to have a decent start and be toward the top of the table rather than the bottom after the first month.  I'm not going to pretend it's been easy.  In one of our draws we scored the tying goal with a minute left in stoppage time.  In the other one we scored the tying goal with a minute left in regular time... about 2 minutes after they scored the go-ahead goal.  So both matches were "skin of our teeth" draws.  We're holding our own, but barely over the first few matches.

The Carabao Cup loss I still don't care about.  I know it's money but we still don't have great squad depth as I just don't want to waste the money to go and grab a bunch of backup players.  I'm hoping that that will come naturally from building up my youth prospects.  I have put bids in on a couple of decent players that could fill roles but I'm just not going to blow a wad of cash that I'd prefer to hold on to for now.

Overall, I'm happy with the start of the season.