If The Kids Are United

Was beating Notts County the start of something amazing or just a cruel, teasing moment of hope before the inevitable? Committed as I am to the club, and desperate as I am for something to turn up, in the cold light of day I have to admit it was the latter.
The commitment that the young lads showed, the energy they threw into the cause, might have embarrassed some of the more senior players who were overlooked yesterday, and made Brian Little's revelation that he pondered making a similar change after the Barnet game rather poignant. If he had done so would the team that beat Notts County have got any fewer points in the subsequent matches? I suspect not.
Having said that, we mustn't get carried away. County are trying to avoid the drop themselves, so it was hardly a win against testing opposition, and we created little until after the goal, when they were over-committing and Danny and Conall were bringing a freshness to the centre of the pitch.
However, Brian Little was right to signal an element of caution for Tuesday's game. The impetuousness of youth-seven of the starting line-up plus one of the subs used are eligible for our young player of the year award-if a promotion-chasing side hit us hard early on then it'll be hard to recover.
On the other hand, as Neil Roberts suggested afterwards, the only way to find out if the kids can withstand such a test is to pitch them in and see!
Anyway, we can't go down on Tuesday, so we live to fight another Saturday. Another chance for the South Wales media to swarm over us like vultures, ready to record our demise! I'm surprised the season will still be alive with only eight days of it left; wouldn't it be great if a miracle happened at Edgar Street and we really had something to go for?
Don't hold your breath though!

Notts County Podcast

The Supporters Association podcast is now up at www.wrexhamfan.co.uk featuring Brian Little, Neil Roberts and Conall Murtagh.

Squad Confusion

Or maybe my last post is miles off the mark. There seems to be no consensus over what the actual squad is today; the official site's story is what I referred to below, but in the Daily Post Mark Currie appears to know the starting eleven, and it is totally different! It sort of sums up where the club is at that we can't even agree on a squad list!

So Much For The New Broom

If, as has been widely suggested, the squad for today's game is the nucleus of the side Brian Little wants at the club next season, it's interesting to note that of the twelve players he's brought in, only three have made the cut! Draw whatever conclusions you wish from that!

All Eyes On Stanley!

This slow death is deeply confusing. Realistically speaking we've been down for a few weeks now; it might turn out that everyone else exceeded our final points total last month. On the other hand, it's very easy to construct and argument for our survival! With Notts County coming up next weekend it has already been pointed out that should they lost at Accrington today and we win tomorrow, we could close to within one point of them with a game in hand.
The sides above us are poor; despite some good results by the sides we've been chasing, the table has finally filtered the rubbish to the bottom and the likes of County and Dagenham might hardly pick up another point all season. The problem is that there's one team which has sunk lower even than them. Basically, a team capable of getting decent results from our reasonably easy run-in would still get out of this mess. But does anyone really think we are that team?
My point's supported by a post I made last month. I decided to play the mug's game of predicting results, and looking back I was pretty good at it! I didn't see Macclesfield saving themselves, but I actually got all Notts County, Mansfield and Dagenham's results right, apart from Mansfield beating us!
The conclusion I drew was that survival was very much within our grasp-indeed, if we won the six-pointers against Mansfield, County and Macc it'd be virtually assured. Franly, I was right; problem is Wrexham didn't live up to their partof the bargain!

Tortured Maths

I don't usually see much point in trying to predict runs of matches to see how a league table will end up; recent results at the bottom of League Two show why that's a mug's game! However, I'm so desperate to see us somehow dig ourselves out of this mess that I feel a need to work out the likely results the other sides will achieve, just to see if I really do believe we can make it, so here goes.

Assuming we beat our rivals in the big head-to-heads, as we surely have to in order to survive, I'd have thought these are the most probable outcomes:

MANSFIELD-hardly the most intimidating run-in. One serious promotion contender and a lot of off-form sides:
Notts Co (a) D
Wrexham (h) L
Barnet (h) D
Stockport (a) L
Macclesfield (a) D
Shrewsbury (h) W
Rotherham (h) D
Dagenham (a) L

MACCLESFIELD TOWN-as above!:
Accrington (h) D
Wrexham (a) L
Mansfield (h) D
Bury (a) L
Chesterfield (h) L
Chester (a) W

NOTTS COUNTY-the nastiest looking run:
Mansfield (h) D
Bury (a) L
Rochdale (a) L
Accrington (h) D
Wrexham (a) L
Wycombe (h) L
Chesterfield (a) L

DAGENHAM-I can see them really struggling:
Chesterfield (h) L
Accrington (a) L
Rochdale (h) L
Rotherham (a) L
Darlington (a) L
Mansfield (h) W

So they'd line up as follows:
Macclesfield Town 46
Dagenham 45
Notts County 42
Mansfield Town 40

We'd have at least nine more points than we do now by virtue of beating all three of them, giving us forty-two points. So if we can do that we'd have a real chance of survival. I admit I've probably been a little optinistic in my predictions, but it does show that we can still do this.

Three points against Dagenham would have made me feel a lot more convinced by my argument though!

Tense nervous headache

A survey was published this season which claimed the most stressed fans in the country were Notts County's.

They've certainly been through a lot, but yesterday they got a chance to see what real suffering looks like!

I'd love to ask Glenn Hoddle what we've all done in our past lives to deserve what we've been through over the past three years!