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Nottingham Post
Nottingham Post
Sport
Oliver King

Luke Williams gives Wealdstone verdict as double injury concern explained

With 100 points and 103 goals this season, Notts County boss Luke Williams continues to strive for absolute perfection as he dissected Friday's 3-0 win over Wealdstone at Meadow Lane.

The Magpies continued to play their part in this remarkable National League campaign, matching Wrexham stride for stride all the way and capitalising when the opportunity arose - Milli Alli playing the starring role as Halifax Town ripped up the script ahead of the biggest game the fifth division will have ever witnessed.

While the score-line suggests a comfortable win and performance, Williams was on hand to critique his side's first-half display, labelling it as poor despite Sam Austin's sublime finish on eight minutes putting his side a goal up at the break.

READ MORE: Frank Vincent makes title race admission despite Notts County capitalising on Wrexham slip-up

In a period of sustained pressure during the middle part of the first half, Stuart Maynard's side created several opportunities to try to draw the game level, providing Notts with some nervy moments in defence as they looked for a way back into the game to try to continue their push for the play-offs.

One thing that became incredibly noticeable during the opening 45 was the amount of time Williams' side were forced to play long, completely dispersing from their usual possession-based style of play.

The Notts boss was on hand to detail the reasoning behind the tactic, saying: "To be honest, we were up against a team that played an incredibly high line.

"When the keeper comes out to advance with the ball, there is no space to play football and they were very brave in doing that, so then we tried to exploit the spaces in behind them.

"Once you do that, if you do not capture the ball behind the lines you have to then jump and press them, so it became a game of two teams with very high lines, very brave in their play, and willing to press each other.

"At times, it was the most sensible thing to go more direct but, I don't think that we did that quite well enough, but the guys recognised that situation and we study this kind of thing so I think the decision was right to play more direct at times but probably the execution was a bit wrong."

With Williams' side travelling to the Racecourse Ground this Monday to take on Wrexham in a game that now holds even more significance given the results on Saturday afternoon, three players were missing from the matchday squad for the visit of Wealdstone.

Goalkeeper Sam Slocombe was one of those players missing, with Archie Mair deputising in between the sticks and putting on yet another impressive display with his evident confidence and composure gained from his previous three league outings.

"I am the only head coach in the National League for sure with three first-choice goalkeepers," Williams said on the decision that awaits him on Monday afternoon for the trip to north Wales.

"I am very lucky but also I have a big headache, but it's fantastic really because who wouldn't want to have three goalkeepers who all play so well?"

The other two players missing from the action were defender Geraldo Bajrami and Ruben Rodrigues.

Rodrigues was forced off during the Magpies' 2-0 win over Altrincham 10 days ago as the J. Davidson surface made it difficult to play on and resulted in the Portuguese's eventual removal from the encounter.

But with the fixture against Phil Parkinson's side fast approaching, Williams was on hand to detail what the pair's involvement will be in three days' time.

"Baj has played incredibly well but we monitor the fatigue score, and his was quite high, so I felt in order for us to have the maximum for us to pick from, we need to remove him from his duties today but he trained before the game so we can monitor what he is doing and give him the correct workload.

"And Ruben trained as well this morning and trained brilliantly with no reaction, but we need to undergo a different type of training with him tomorrow to see that we can tick off everything if he comes through before the game on Monday."

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