Notts And Stockport Want To Make It Worth The Wait!

Neal Ardley’s side discovered a player in Yeovil Town’s ranks had tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday.

Stockport County would soon feel their pain - on Saturday morning, Sutton United also had concerns and the plug was quickly pulled on their planned visit.

A blank weekend then on paper, but both instead hit the training pitch as the focus quickly turned to putting on a show on Tuesday night.

With two of the division’s fancied sides locking horns live on BT Sport, it’s almost certain to be worth the wait.

Coverage on BT Sport 1HD gets underway from Meadow Lane at 7.30pm.

Notts boss Ardley put the unexpected break to good use and knows the importance of getting back on track.

Home defeat to Boreham Wood last time out ended a great run of five matches unbeaten, with ten points packed away in their pockets from their previous four outings.

“We’ll get through two hard days now – we won’t be wasting them,” he told the club’s official website on Friday.

“Hopefully we’ll take the players who are returning from injury to a new level of fitness. We’ll see how they train and assess who could feature against Stockport.”

The message from the manager is simple - no making the same mistakes again.

“We've let ourselves down at a set-piece and as a manager, as I always say, that's the frustrating thing because you need players to do their jobs in the box and those margins have cost us," he said after the Wood defeat.

"We've lost four games this season, three of them were to set pieces.”

Magpies beware - Stockport County have won their last four away National League matches.

Sandwiched in between those victories over Wealdstone, Chesterfield, Bromley and Barnet was FA Cup success at League One Rochdale.

This will be the 35th competitive meeting between the sides, with Notts winning 15 and Stockport nine.

A win for Jim Gannon’s team will see them leapfrog the Magpies in the table and the manager is very pleased with how things are developing.

“It has been a very good start,” he said on the club’s video service. “But we’re not even near a third of the way through, let alone half way!

“I don’t think anyone really thought we would really hit the ground running but we have done well.

“We are seeing the team grow and that’s really important. Every game we are looking a little bit stronger and hopefully the fans can see that.”

On the prospect of changes, he added: “I don’t like the term squad rotation. We have a healthy squad and the ability to make changes - we have tried to keep things fresh.

“When you are starting to connect as a team you are tempted to stick with that, but we have some good options now and a really strong bench with some hungry players on it.”

It’s not the only action on Tuesday night with three other National League games taking place.

Leaders Torquay United showed they can dig in on Saturday with ten men at King’s Lynn and they welcome a Dagenham & Redbridge side with just one away defeat in four.

Weymouth manager Brian Stock knows the Terras’ run of four straight defeats needs to come to an end. They welcome Wrexham to Dorset.

Elsewhere, FC Halifax Town are going for four straight victories - they are at Solihull Moors, who want an instant reaction after losing their unblemished home run at the weekend.