Globe Arena, Saturday 24 November 2018, 3pm, League 2.

Attendance 1658 with 263 from Nottingham.

Halstead Yarney Lavelle Old Kenyon Tutte Mandeville Cranston Conlan Leitch-Smith Oliver subs used Thompson for Yarney, Ellison for Mandeville both 53, Oswell for Kenyon 82nd.

County – Fitzsimmons Davies Ward Turley Jones Milsom c Hewitt Boldewijn Patching Thomas Dennis subs Husin for Boldewijn 10th, Etete for Dennis 90th.

Ref – Dean Whitestone, Not a dirty game, but County could have had a pen for a Conlan trip, we could for handball twice, but he was unmoved. Ignored some quality timewasting from County, and only 4 minutes added despite Thomas going down twice for over 90 seconds each time!!

Pitch – starting to show a little bare and patchy near the tunnel side, only a little wind again thankfully.

Yellows – Just one , Dennis from County 71.

Jim made three changes, with Mills having an op and Oates and Wildig carrying knocks, Yarney returned in a back three, Tutte and Kenyon took up places  in the midfield. Its safe to say that if you chose to go Xmas shopping or re felt the shed roof, this was a good decision based on a poor first half. Both sides seemed frightened to commit men forward for the fear of being caught out at the back, so it was cagey, nervy and the final ball from both was rushed and wayward. Apart from a 45 second bout of head tennis across the half way line, this was poor entertainment. AJ shot wide from a low cross, they replied firing well over from a corner and Halstead saved a Dennis effort easily.

Mandeville woke everyone up early in the second half, forcing the first real save from Fitzsimmons in the visitors goal, he was at full stretch to tip away this curling effort. Corners were being delivered to County shirts, annoyingly and one clearance lead to Conlan conceding a throw by his own corner flag. They took it quickly and the front post cross was glanced home by the alert Dennis to give the visitors the lead on 52. Not another smash and grab, Surely?

The home sides reaction was swift, Kev and Thommo coming on to reshuffle and hopefully have a go at them. Cranston want on a fantastic run passing four players with his pace, but the ball sat under his feet and he lost control on the edge of the D. As the pressure built up, County dropped deeper and began to concede corners and free kicks. Ellison had a free kick go high and handsome after 70, and yet more corners were frustratingly met by County heads. Notts did  break out, Thomas shooting over when more composure could have sealed the points on 76.

With time running out, corner number 11 was delivered, for a change to the back post where Lavelle headed back across goal and Kev reacted quickest to hook over his head and equalise on 88. More pressure followed as Thommo won another corner which was hacked desperately clear in injury time. So point each, in a lacklustre game its didn’t look as if we would get anything again, we have played far better and lost this season.

Another game where our centre forward has offered no goal threat at all, I wonder how long we can justify him starting when he does work hard but caused no discernible worry in the 18 yard box either at Halifax or today. Surely Oswell deserves more than the crumbs to try and make a difference? What have we got to lose, we aren’t scoring loads or creating much currently, surely it’s time to change it? Or is it just me?

Freez