The faint hopes held by some fans of Notts County challenging Halifax Town and Solihull Moors for the coveted third place in the National League surely disappeared after Saturday’s 3-1 defeat at Aldershot Town.
With three games remaining, the Magpies are seven points behind the Shaymen and five behind Moors, with both also enjoying superior goal differences. The reasons behind Notts’ failure to seriously threaten the top three, and secure the huge advantage of a home play-off semi-final, will be debated long and hard when their fate is decided at the end of the season.
But for head coach Ian Burchnall, the only challenge currently occupying his mind is the Bank Holiday Monday match against relegated Dover Athletic at Meadow Lane. “I have never talked about getting third, I always talk about the next game and trying to get a result, which we haven’t done today,” he said after his team’s desperately poor display at a club fighting for their lives to escape relegation.
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“Third place has never been in our hands and it isn’t now, so we concentrate on finishing as strongly as we can and hopefully when we are in those play-off spots we will fight for everything in each of those games.”
Notts are currently fifth, which will earn them a home-quarter-final play-off tie if they can retain that place after their remaining three games against Dover, at home to Altrincham and away on the final day of the season at Maidenhead. But it is incredibly tight, with Grimsby and Chesterfield on the same points tally as the Magpies, who are ahead of them only on goal difference.
And with Dagenham & Redbridge rediscovering form and moving to within four points of the trio, and having a superior goal difference to them all, it promises to be a nail-biting end to the season, even before the play-offs begin.
