Stuart Maynard hails Notts County’s response after victory at Grimsby

Stuart Maynard was delighted with Notts County’s response to their recent struggles as they recorded a 2-0 League Two win at Grimsby to move to to fourth.

The Magpies’ top two goalscorers Alassana Jatta and David McGoldrick were the match winners again for their team as County battled through a closely-contested first half and were clinical after the break to come away with their first win in four.

Maynard praised his team’s attitude in coming back from consecutive defeats to beat a fellow promotion-challenger away from home.

He said: “We have a group of players in there that are men and they always give a response, which they’ve shown that again today.

“Sometimes they will come up short, but when they do, they take it on the chin and go again because they know what it means to play for this club.

“They (Grimsby) were at their very best in the first half and sometimes you have to withstand that pressure whether it’s at home or away, but we came out in the second half and went through the gears quickly.”

Jatta had seen good opportunities go begging in recent games, but he responded as a goalscorer would to get his side in front and stay in hot pursuit of the League Two Golden Boot.

Maynard added: “(McGoldrick) has been incredible with him (Jatta) and it is mad that in football, even the top forwards can go a couple of games without scoring and be criticised.

“The hardest thing to do when you’ve been missing chances is to go in for the next one, but he was brave enough to do that here even after it didn’t go in after the first few attempts.”

For Grimsby, it was fine margins that cost them in defeat as their unbeaten run was ended at eight games.

“I thought we were just on the wrong end of the big moments,” said manager David Artell. “It was a close game that was going to be defined by the big moments – which didn’t go our way – and that’s ultimately what cost us.

“I thought it was a really good advert for League Two and I thought the crowd responded to that. It was an entertaining game between two good teams; we didn’t quite come out on the right side of it, but it certainly wasn’t for the want of trying.

“The lads have given everything during this unbeaten run that we’ve been on and they did again here. We’ve tried and another day, we’re the ones who get our noses in front and take control of the game from that point.

“We play that exact game 10 times then we would win more than a couple of them because we end up taking some of the big chances we had.”