Harrogate Town 0 Notts County 2: Simon Weaver could do with pep talk from Neil Warnock after brutal day
NEIL Warnock was at Wetherby Road on Saturday and hopefully had a few words of advice for Simon Weaver.
He could definitely do with them. The Harrogate Town manager needs all the help he can get.
Warnock’s ‘Great Escape’ feats at both Huddersfield Town and Rotherham United are etched into folklore at both White Rose clubs.
Middlesbrough were also very grateful for the presence of football’s self-styled ‘Red Adair’ in the 2019-20 campaign as well.
Should Harrogate complete their own act of relegation escapology in the coming weeks, then it will also be reverentially recalled in this part of Yorkshire.
Harrogate’s current plight is as every bit as stricken as the situation which greeted Warnock ahead of his second stint at Town in 2022-23 and with the Millers a decade ago. And at Boro, come to mention it.
After being wounded in the first half of Saturday afternoon following defeat to one of Warnock’s former clubs in Notts County, Weaver’s side were kicked where it hurts by the end of it following victories for relegation rivals Newport County, Barrow and Crawley Town in the 3pm kick-offs. It was a brutal day, all told.
The upshot is that Harrogate are effectively five points adrift of safety with six League Two games left, with their league status in grave peril in their sixth season in the EFL.
Other numbers are just as unkind.
They have scored just 29 times at league level so far in 2025-26. Only Sheffield Wednesday, a crisis club whose squad was ravaged before a ball was kicked in August - forcing them to effectively field a kindergarten line-up - have a worse record across the EFL.
Harrogate's issues at home are particularly crippling and stark. The Sulphurites have netted 12 times in 20 matches. Damningly, they have failed to score in a dozen of them.
Aside from a minute or two in isolation in the final quarter against Notts, they did not look like scoring here in all honesty.
At the start of the season, if someone had said that James Belshaw would be forced to make just one save in the home game versus County, then everyone of a Harrogate persuasion would have been suitably delighted. Unfortunately, he is now in the colours of his boyhood club.
His only real work came with 72 minutes on the clock when two Harrogate substitutes combined.
Tobias Brenan sent Stephen Duke-McKenna away and his rasping low drive was parried in text-book fashion by Belshaw.
Moments later, a long-ranger from left-back Jacob Slater fizzed narrowly off target. It was more like it from the hosts, but begged the question. Where was all this before? And indeed after, to be fair.
After a pretty desperate Saturday, is there any Harrogate hope?
Well, there are worse defences in the fourth tier and certainly far more inferior centre-back partnerships than new year signing Cathal Heffernan and Liam Gibson, who played well enough and have forged a decent understanding.
Harrogate, self-evidently, aren’t going to blow away teams, but if they can nick a goal from somewhere and get in front, then they may - just may - have the wherewithal to defend it.
Five clubs - Tranmere Rovers, Cheltenham Town, Shrewsbury Town, Newport and Barrow - have leaked more goals and Crawley and Bristol Rovers have conceded as many.
Big centre-forward Emile Acquah put himself about when he came on and he might just be worth a go over a critical Easter double-header when you feel that Harrogate have to win at least one game to realistically stay in the survival fight from a psychological aspect.
Two-goal Alassana Jatta made the difference for Notts and is the sort of player who Harrogate would die for.
Or his strike partner Matthew Dennis for that matter. Their combined number of league goals so far this term is the same number as Town’s current league tally.
Forwards require service in fairness and there were major deficiencies in that department from Harrogate.
The quality of their final ball was pretty substandard, while their decision-making in the final third left a fair bit to be desired and told a story. There was nothing wrong with their effort and willingness, but you need more.
Any poise on show invariably came from Notts, who also made the better decisions.
Their opener followed slick work down the right which ended with Jatta being in the right place to tap in after pinpoint work from Huddersfield Town loanee Tom Iorpenda, who caught the eye early on.
While it looked marginal as to whether Jatta was onside or off, there was no doubting his second late on.
His near-post finish after latching onto the ball following Jodi Jones’s attempted shot was emphatic and deadly.
Harrogate Town: Gray; Headman, Heffernan, Gibson, Slater; Morris, Evans; Taylor (Duke-McKenna 61), L Sutton (Brenan HT), Smith; Muldoon (Acquah 71). Substitutes unused: Waller, Thomson, Faulkner, Cass.
Notts County: Belshaw; Macari, Ness, Bedeau; Bennetts (Browne 89), Palmer, Tangen (Grant HT), Jones (Luker 89); Iorpenda; Jaffa, Dennis (Ndlovu 71). Substitutes unused: Griffiths, Enoru, Iwunze.
Referee: W Finnie (Beds).