llanwern exile wrote:We have a really tough january ahead of us with 5 games in 14 days and a tough 5 games at that, salford and carlisle at home, cheltenham oldham and harrogate away, if we come out of that lot still in the top 3 i will start to believe

Aye - getting down to the nitty gritty now. Carlisle have a v tough run of fixtures coming up and if Cheltenham do well in the cup then their league fixtures will become congested. I see the 5th round FA cup games are to be played midweek 10 February. Fortunately we don't play either Cheltenham or Crawley on 4th or 5th round FA cup dates. Lots of twists and turns to come - Covid, weather will no doubt play a part. All good stuff though and great to be in the mix at the right end of the table. Seems like County doing well has just about been the only good thing happening in past few months.

George Street-Bridge wrote:

OLDCROMWELLIAN wrote:As it would seem no Abrahams for Sat

Argus says Abrahams will be back at training Tuesday, they all have a day off today.

Yes indeed. I assumed his positive test was this week, but apparently it was last week .7 & or 10 days must be up by Tuesday.

Good draw for Cheltenham with Man City at home in R4. We play Cheltenham on the Tuesday before so with a bit of luck they will take their eye off the ball against us.

faerun exile wrote:
Just an aside but thought ref Lee Mason had a very good game.

No bookings.

It was an easy game to referee,. no flash points, no tough decisions to make

I think he missed a caution in the first half when one of our defenders pulled an attacker down after being beaten in the corner. It was either Mickey D or Scott Bennett, I don't recall now, but it should of been a yellow for committing a foul which stopped a promising attack.

But other than that it was 2 teams who played within the laws of the game

Snowman wrote:

faerun exile wrote:
Just an aside but thought ref Lee Mason had a very good game.

No bookings.

It was an easy game to referee,. no flash points, no tough decisions to make

I think he missed a caution in the first half when one of our defenders pulled an attacker down after being beaten in the corner. It was either Mickey D or Scott Bennett, I don't recall now, but it should of been a yellow for committing a foul which stopped a promising attack.

But other than that it was 2 teams who played within the laws of the game

Mason let the game flow - L2 refs I find are overly whistle-happy and would've blown for more freekicks during the game last night. Tend to find that when we've been refereed by the "better" refs like Mason, Dean etc.
22 free kicks last night compared to the 27 on average given this season during our L2 games, so not a massive difference but to me it felt like the game flowed better with far fewer stoppages. Didn't really notice the ref which is always a good thing.

Blackpool at home in R4 would have been tough but winnable I suppose. Unlikely to have been on the tellybox. Followed by Brentford or Leicester away if we got past Blackpool.

faerun exile wrote:Blackpool at home in R4 would have been tough but winnable I suppose. Unlikely to have been on the tellybox. Followed by Brentford or Leicester away if we got past Blackpool.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the balls given out alphabetically? In that case we would have been the ball Norwich had, I believe - so, Barnsley away

We lost

mad norm wrote:We lost

Well spotted

aberexile wrote:

faerun exile wrote:Blackpool at home in R4 would have been tough but winnable I suppose. Unlikely to have been on the tellybox. Followed by Brentford or Leicester away if we got past Blackpool.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the balls given out alphabetically? In that case we would have been the ball Norwich had, I believe - so, Barnsley away

No,we were ball 31,if......

aberexile wrote:

mad norm wrote:We lost

Well spotted

Which was the well spotted ball?

aberexile wrote:

faerun exile wrote:Blackpool at home in R4 would have been tough but winnable I suppose. Unlikely to have been on the tellybox. Followed by Brentford or Leicester away if we got past Blackpool.

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the balls given out alphabetically? In that case we would have been the ball Norwich had, I believe - so, Barnsley away

The numbers are allocated dependent in the order that the ties came out in the previous round, so we would have been the same number.

Brighton boss Graham Potter, speaking to BT Sport: "As a group we have been moving forward, trying our best to get results. That's the challenge of the Premier League.

"It was nice to go through [into the FA Cup fourth round]. It was a difficult match against a team with a history of giant killings [Newport]. Hopefully we can take that into tonight."

Brighton certainly took their recent form i.e. the game against us into the Man City game. They tried to do to Man City what we tried to do to them.

I watched Brighton Man City last night using the remains of my BT Sport pass I bought to watch County. As someone who does not watch PL football normally it was interesting. The commentators said that City were playing without a centre forward. I've heard of nines and false nines, but never no nines. The EFL clubs are being left behind still playing with a 9 (except for Plymouth who have Frank Nouble. He is a no nine)
.
Brighton made 6 changes from the side that started against County. They included Tau who came on as a sub against us. He looks a good player. Not spectacular but read the game well and put in some good passes. Of course, as a centre forward he clearly has no future. They are a dying breed.

Didn’t Spain play without a nine when they were good.