Notts County 0-4 Birmingham

Notts County were thumped in our pre season friendly against Birmingham City, and manager Shaun Derry made no secret of the fact that the team need to show a vast improvement in their efforts and quality before the season kicks off for real.

For a full match report please click here.

The official site itself opens with the following statement.

‘In summary, the Magpies were not good enough and no excuses were made after the final whistle…’

And that’s all many really need to know, although it must be said young goalkeeper Fabian Spiess did perform well, coming up with a series of fine saves over the 90 minutes.

Another positive was also the return from injury of full back Mustapha Dumbuya who came through 45 minutes well.

Att: 2,016 (681 Including Away Supporters).

Notts County: Spiess, Dumbuya (Asante 45), Hollis (C Thompson 45), Mullins, Adams, Whitehouse (Dawson 45), Wroe, Noble, Ismail (McKenzie 45), G Thompson, Cassidy.

Subs:

Pilkington, Smith.

Birmingham City:

Doyle, Caddis, Grounds, Packwood, Reilly, Gray, Gleeson, Lee, Brown, Shinnie, Donaldson.

Subs:

Trueman, Edgar, Hall, Hancox, Duffy, Adeyemi, Eardley, Thomas, Cotterill, Novak.

Speaking following the game, a disappointed manager said.

‘I was disappointed and I think everyone that came would have shared my view of it. They were horrendous goals to give away – absolutely horrendous goals – and I think when that happens you’ve got absolutely no chance of winning football games. We conceded two in the space of five minutes and that really stopped us from doing anything in the first half.’

Derry goes on to say that then the last two goals were just as bad for him and ruined the second half as well.

‘I’m not going to stand here and lie and say there were any positives out of the night because there wasn’t. We need to work hard – just like we have done since we came into the building. Nothing’s going to change overnight, of course, as we’ve got new players coming in and we’ve got to find what ticks their boxes. But I don’t want to see that kind of performance too many times again.’