Blarney

New Contract they like me, they really like me A shiny new 3-year contract at 3500 per week. I'm very happy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Another impressive season. Your goal difference is incredible, truly a testament to playing well on both sides of the ball for your club.

Great 2 months of the season. Outscoring opponents 17-4 in league play is a good sign of things to come.

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.

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.

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!

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.

FA Cup Preview The Independent You're facing Charlton in your 4th Round FA Cup match. They are currently sitting in 2nd place in League One. How are we feeling about this one? Eddie Sirrel We know the quality of their club and they're having an amazing season but we've been working hard in training and feeling confident. The Independent You've got them at home in front of your fans, I assume that's a plus. Eddie Sirrel We're always excited to go out there and play for our supporters. They absolutely give us an extra boost of energy when we take the pitch. Nottingham Post The last time Notts County progressed past the 4th round was in the 2009/2010 season. Is it important to you to get past this round this season? Eddie Sirrel I'll answer that as honestly as I can, which may not be exactly what everybody wants to hear. The answer is no. In the scheme of things our focus this season has been on league play, if you asked me that question about every single league match we've played and will play the rest of the season then I'd say I want to win every single one. Obviously we haven't done that and I never would have realistically thought we would but that wouldn't change the fact that was our goal. Cup competitions right now to us are icing on the cake. We want to do well but we're not taking our focus away from the league. Now, the other side of that is the further we progress in a competition the more we'd like to stay in it, so it's not like we're going to go out there and fold. Charlton is going to see our best side and we're going to see how we stack up.

Transfer Deadline *crickets* We made one move at the deadline. And it was relatively minor. Nico wasn't starting for us and really had no path to becoming a starter so we let him go. We put a few others in the window but didn't get any offers and we decided not to make any moves to bring anybody else in. There were a few we looked at but they demanded too much money and I just didn't want to spend it at this time. We'll work through the remainder of this season with the guys we have and rotate them as necessary and hopefully do enough to maintain our lead and go into the off-season looking to re-tool.

January in Review Schedule Nice start to the month with 3 league wins and a win in our FA Cup match. Then we got a little tired again and ended up with 2 draws and a loss in our final 3 matches. Table We have a 13 point lead now and looking good for the final push. League Two Team Stats Offensive stats looking a little better and we're still strong defensively. League Two Player Stats My gosh I hope we can keep Langstaff.... but I'm really worried about the interest he keeps getting. Financials We're having a decent year financially bolstered by the money we're getting from transfers out and not spending any money on bringing guys in. Review A nice little bounce-back from how we fell apart at the end of last month. We got back on track and only lost 1 match this month. We also increased our lead for first place... while there is a real tight race between spots 2-8 and even 9-14 are only a few points out from a playoff spot.

The Independent Reports Trent Crimm sports Things are heating up in Nottingham and we don't just mean on the pitch. Reports are that Derby has Notts County manager, Eddie Sirrel, firmly in their sights for the opening at their club. There was even a fan poll done recently and the supporters are fully behind Eddie being picked in overwhelming numbers. For what it's worth, Eddie has laughed off the reports and said that it's always nice to be recognized and considered wanted for other jobs but he's fully committed to Notts County, which should make their supporters happy. In fact he's just recently signed a new contract keeping him at County for another year. Hopefully that was just the starting point for a bigger contract to come and one can imagine that if Notts keeps up the success they're having this year and earns another promotion.... that a new contract should be on his desk pretty darn quickly before another club does come in and make an him an offer he can't refuse.

Derby coming hard It is nice to be wanted.

New Contract They want me around

Notts Board Concerns I've been approached by a couple of different clubs about jumping ship. I've turned them down politely without even going to an interview but it appears the board is concerned either way. That's obivously a good thing.

December in Review Schedule 9 more matches this month, 9 last month... we're a little tired even with the extra players we have available. Table We're still on top but Tranmere is breahing down our neck. Luckily we just beat them to knock 'em down a peg. League Two Team Stats Slipping on goals scored. Still nowhere to be seen in any other offensive category. League Two Player Stats Langstaff still on top. Financials Made a decent chunk of money this month.. partly from the 300k we got as part of the Scott trade we did earlier in the season. Review We lost 2 out of our last 4 matches in league play. We were really getting exhausted with how our schedule has been the past 2 months. Even with the extra depth and rotating guys in and out our players have still been winded. We got past Tranmere 1-0 which is good because they've closed to within 8 points of us. We also won our FA Cup match in a very tight contest against Walsall. We were pretty lucky in that match and probably pretty lucky we played them at the start of the month and not the end. The transfer window opens up at the start of the month but I'm not sure if we'll do any business. If I can move a couple of guys then I might look to bring some young reinforcements in as that is still my main priority. I'm not going to go out and spend a lot of money on anybody else at the moment.

***Well it wouldn't be me if I didn't mess something up. Somehow after my last game that I played I didn't save the progress, which I always do. And I always save it before I shut the game down... but I didn't. So the last match we played had to be re-played, which obviously changes the stats that I posted. We did get the win but it was 2-1 this time. Not nearly as impressive. I'll just keep the previous post up because in the end it doesn't matter much but just figured I'd explain what happened if anybody is paying that much attention and sees a different result than what I posted.**

***My schedule is going to tighten up a little so I'm probably going to go to monthly updates rather than per match until I get a little more free time. I don't want to abandon this save and I don't want to go days or a week without updating which could happen if I continue doing it the way I have been. Once I free up some time I may go back to per match, but just wanted to let you all know why it was changing.**

November in Review Schedule 9 matches on the schedule this month, so it was a long month where we needed to rest some players. Luckily we got the chance in a FA Cup match against a lesser opponent and then a Papa Johns Trophy match where we had already been eliminated. In league play... we managed 5 wins and a draw in our 6 matches... where we only gave up 4 goals total. Table We're starting to put some distance between us and the rest of the league as we continue to sneak wins and still haven't lost. League Two Team Stats We've worked our way up to 2nd in the league in goals scored and 4th in conversion rate. League Two Player Stats Langstaff still leads in goals scored and Kovacevic is first in save percentage. Lethal combo. Financials A little dip in the cash flow.

Match Nineteen from Sixfields Stadium, Northampton offensive explosion Biggest offensive game we've had this season. Funny thing is they got off more shots than we did and had a better xG than we did. But we kept sneaking them by their keeper and they struggled against ours.

Match Eighteen from Meadow Lane dominating Barrow never stood a chance in this one. We pummeled them in shots and they couldn't mount any offense against us. The good times just keep rolling along.