For a team that has built an identity on attacking high intensity possession based football these are quite possibly the least flattering set of match stats of the season so far.
Don't get me wrong, Holker Street is not a great place to have to go, and add to that being up against a team unbeaten at home and with a very good manager in Pete Wild, coming away with anything at all is not to be sniffed at. That said Notts really should have done better in pretty much all departments, something Luke Williams was very obviously upset about in his post match interview, and you would imagine this is a performance that the players will be pleased to see that back of.
Notts were very much in the ascendancy from the kick-off and were deserving of the lead in the first 15 minutes. However, that was pretty much as good as it got as for much of the remainder of the game they appeared to lose all sense of attacking cohesion. In fact it wasn't just the attacking, the whole system of play that forms the blueprint of a Luke Williams team appeared to be completely lost on the Notts players, especially in the second half.
This is further confirmed in the data below and particularly the xG data which suggests Barrow should really have come out as comfortable winners.
Despite managing to keep more of the ball there was very little made of the possession enjoyed by Notts. In fact just 3 attempts on goal in the first half including the penalty and then restricted to 4 attempts on goal in the second half. Langstaff's control let him down a little with his big chance in the first half and had his second touch been a little softer you would bank on him putting that chance away but that's being hyper critical. We can see from the xG timeline just how ineffective Notts were with the few chances created.
Barrow on the other hand managed 12 attempts on goal with Acquah, Garner and Whitfield all missing a brace of high value chances each.
There is very little left to be said that hasn't already been documented about this performance and we should probably take some comfort from the fact we came away with a point when it could have been very different.
Notts face Derby at home in the EFL Trophy on Tuesday night, a game where it would be nice to rest a few key players, but with the Notts squad not being the biggest, you can expect to see early changes from the bench by Williams as he tries to manage player fitness for the visit of Mansfield on Saturday, the only team in League Two and one of only 4 teams in the top 4 tiers yet to lose a game in the league this season. Meh . . .
Don't forget you can check out all of the season and player stats for Notts here