What a difference a week makes. After faltering to a resounding defeat at Stockport last Tuesday night and news coming out of the dire straights a squad illness and injuries had left the club in you could have been mistaken for thinking we were in the grips of a relegation battle.
Fast forward to last night and buoyed by a first win in 6 games away at Dagenham on Saturday, a vastly improved Notts finally showed their credentials with a 1-0 win over potential play off rivals Boreham Wood in a game where the score line probably flattered the visitors.
The addition of Harry Arter has allowed Matty Palmer to play in a more advanced role alongside the ever energetic Frank Vincent with Arter playing the role of puppet master and magician with the left footed play maker whipping in attacking set pieces with both feet with equal quality.
In fact this was probably one of those games where every player in a black and white shirt performed outstandingly in equal measure, but with special mentions for Dion Kelly-Evans putting in the best LWB performance seen at Meadow Lane for some time, a back three of Lacey, Rawlinson and Chicksen who never gave the opposition a look in and a real captain's performance from Kyle Wootton who set the tone by leading warrior like from the front.
Anyway, that's enough from me getting way too excited over a 1-0 win at home . . . here's the stats!
Key match stats.
Back to the kind of match stats we had become more used to. Very much in control of the game in all areas and another indication of how well Notts coped with a big physical defence with Boreham Wood only winning 31.15% of their aerial duels.
Also, something to consider when analysing the stats, on the face of it it looks likes the Wood were slightly more attacking with passes into the final third, however what this doesn't tell you is that they only had 45% accuracy compared to Notts' 84% accuracy, essentially there were a lot of hopeful long balls from the visitors.
One other thing I would point out that could come under the "could do better" mantra for Notts is attempts from corners. With Arter we now have a very good dead ball taker so it was a little disappointing to only get 3 goal attempts off from 16 corners, but again this might be an indication of how good Boreham Wood are at defending their box.
Onto points needed and 6 points from the last two games has helped the PPG and brings Notts more in line with a play off projection.
Click on the legend tags at the top to filter options.
Progress updated, and up another place to 6th. As you can see after 34 games last season Notts were 4 places lower in 10th and still managed to finish 5th. Hopefully a favourable 7 or 8 games during the run in to the end of the season will see an improvement on that.
National League results tracker updated.
Goal segment chart:
Six game segments updated. 7 points from 4 games this segment.
Player stats updated:
As usual this is the new table that is also available to view on the player stats page of the website here. There will also be separate tables for the two cup competitions.
Goals and assists chart. It hasn't been recognised by Wyscout but based on Matty Palmer's post match interview I've given the assist to Dion Kelly-Evans.
Goal scatter charts updated.
You can hover on the dots (tap if on a touch screen) to view details for each goal.
xG now and nice to see Notts back to recording some decent chances. Although Boreham Wood had a couple of big chances of their own in the first half, but after that they were restricted to lower value goal scoring opportunities.
Match xG stats: Notts good value for the win.
Player xG Stats: A clear indication of the added threat Matty Palmer can add to the mix when allowed to play a more advanced role thanks to the addition of Harry Arter.
National League goal scorers includes cup games, penalties and own goals.
Ian Burchnall's record updated after 61 games:
Next up Chesterfield at home on Saturday and in front of the BT Sport cameras. I'll be posting another opposition analysis for this fixture so keep your eyes peeled for that.
As always thanks for reading.
COYP!
Richard