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Nottingham Post
Nottingham Post
Sport
Leigh Curtis

Ian Burchnall delivers Kyle Wootton update amid blunt Notts County verdict on Weymouth win

Head coach Ian Burchnall allayed concerns over the fitness of Notts County's top scorer Kyle Wootton after the Magpies' top scorer was substituted late on in their 3-1 win over Weymouth.

The Magpies forward needed to be replaced 10 minutes from the end of the National League victory with Ruben Rodrigues calling to the bench for a substitution as Wootton sat on the turf near the halfway line.

But Burchnall ended any fears that it was a serious problem and expects the forward to be okay with Notts chasing promotion back to the Football League.

"Kyle is fine," he said. "We knew that he has played a lot of minutes and over the next three or four games he is going to need a break. That's fine. We've got good players who can come in. I thought Eli did great when he came on.

"There are lots of players waiting to play. We will have to rotate but we've got a strong squad so that's no problem.

"At half-time Kyle felt his back a little bit, but felt he was okay to keep pushing. We started to get the substitution ready at 3-0.

"But we conceded and we just felt we needed another 10 minutes out of Woots before we took him off. Conceding didn't help us. Kyle is so important to us and helping at defending set-pieces.

"I didn't want to bring him out of that moment, but he will need a break."

Wootton scored his 21st goal of the season which set Notts on the way to victory as they threatened to run riot courtesy of a blistering opening that saw Aaron Nemane double the lead in the first 15 minutes.

But Weymouth hit the bar and the post as they launched a spirited fightback before half-time before Ruben Rodrigues put the game beyond them with a glorious free-kick. However Tom Bearwish did score for the visitors who are heading to Conference South next season.

While Burchnall praised the opening 30 minutes, he was not satisfied with the rest of the performance.

"I am going to say I didn't enjoy it and I know that sounds strange when we win 3-1," he said. "I thought for the first 30 minutes we were absolutely magnificent.

"We cut them open at will. They pressed us and I just thought it could have been easily four or five in that first 25-30 minutes. We were brilliant.

"But I thought that it was a poor last 10 minutes of the first half when they had a couple of chances and probably deserved to score. We took our foot off the pedal and I just felt it was a complacent 10 minutes. We can't be like that.

"We are much better than that. I am frustrated at half-time even though we are 2-0 up. We come out and it's a brilliant free-kick and the game is dead. But then I think we should try to score four, five and six.

"I have to understand that Weymouth are fighting for their lives and they played some good stuff. But still we should control the game much better than we did in the second half."

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