Notts County Football Club

Notts have six pre-season friendlies remaining before the 2014.15 curtain raiser at Deepdale on 9 August, beginning with a trip to Nuneaton Town on Tuesday night.

Manager Shaun Derry is expected to give all of his players another run out at the Sperrin Brewery Stadium but expects improvements, both individually and collectively. 

“I’ve always seen these first three or four games as a chance for everybody to prove whether they’re ready for League 1 football and on Saturday we got a few answers,” Derry told Magpie Player. 

“I felt that certain players kind of came to the front and others disappointed, but I’d rather see that now than in the season time.

“I decided to match the teams spread evenly between old and young and we’re learning pretty quickly.

“I’ve said that it’s an unrelenting division and we’re going to come up against teams like Mansfield.

“It’s pointless getting beaten 3-1 if you’re going to go back home and feel that everything’s fine, because everyone has to look at their own individual performances and collectively and say that on Saturday we were short.”

He continued: “We’ve got players with ability and I think that the signings that have come in will be good players for us.

“Along the way, when you’re mixing it with so many players that have not played together and throw into the equation how many players left us in the summer, days like Saturday are perhaps more understandable.

“You can’t build relationships overnight and that’s why we’ve been very keen to get the lads in and integrated because I want them to spend as much time as they possibly can with each other. 

“It’s not just about ability, it’s about having a knowledge and a knowhow about how I want to play and the lads have got to know how to play alongside each other as well.”