It’s fair to say that Notts County are in dire straits. A nine-game losing streak— most recently a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Cambridge United— has left them in 22nd place in League Two, just one point above the relegation. There’s still time in the season to turn things around, of course, but as things stand it’s entirely possible the Magpies aren’t long for the Football League.
It’s not entirely clear what, exactly, County needs to do in order to get back on track and avoid the drop. But there’s one obvious point of intervention they could look at.
Notts County have conceded the same goal against Cambridge three times in 13 months ???? pic.twitter.com/RtbjGy9F1G
— BigSport (@BigSportGB) January 3, 2017
In the past 13 months, Notts County have conceded goals through the exact same kind of ridiculous goalkeeper error. On three separate occasions, the keeper would kick the ball directly at an opponent, causing the ball to ricochet back and into the goal. Different games, different keepers, same problem.
Obviously I’m not a football manager. (I just pretend to be one in FIFA.) But in my decisively not-expert opinion, Notts County could maybe look into not making that particular error anymore. Not to get too deep in the weeds, but I would suggest identifying the action sequence that leads to that kind of blunder and then instructing the goalkeepers to not do those things in that order anymore. Just a thought!