Thetownend.com

So, week 2 is upon us..

Following a home win to start us off, we then went on to give it a good go in the EFL Cup 1st round, only to be knocked out via penalties.

Chesterfield started off with a 1-1 draw to Poxford, followed by a 3-1 loss.

With Doughty back available and a healthier looking squad (with some new addition(s)), I’m going for a 2-0 Swindon win, with Stewart & Norris getting the goals!

 The 2-0 win is highly unlikely....our last 2 visits to the Spireites have been an aggreagte of 0-7. It can't last....bizarrely last season when defensively we were terrible the Spireites failed to notch against us. A dull 1-1 would be very acceptable.

Meh, I don't really read into previous visits.

Scrappy uninspiring 1-0 victory, typical STFC fashion after a good cup performance against a higher league side. But I would gladly take it

Feeling confident about this game so a win 0-1

Inspired by our unexpected start, I'm going to this one.  Hope to see us continue to improve & will be happy with a point, but think we'll sneak it. 2-1.

2-2 with goals from Doughty and Norris. Team selection will be interesting and no doubt impacted by wednesdays efforts. I think this is how it may look -vigoroux, furlong, thomas, thompson, sendles-white, boo, kasim, smith, doughty, goddard, norris. Subs - henry, barry,  brophy, rogers, hylton, landolo and stewart. With obika, branco and jones all out injured that is reasonable strength in depth now.

Draw. 1-1

I'm feeling positive and will go for a 3-1 win for us Doughty, Norris and Yasser again with the goals, will be interesting to see the side Williams goes with my side would be Vigs Brophy JSW Nathan Jones ( if available) Furlong Kasim Doughty Thomas Goddard Norris : sub's Henry Barry Landolo Hylton Young Stewart Rodgers

1-1 with Norris getting off the mark with 6,321 there in attendance with 675 Town fans there.

You should try it....keeping 2 clean sheets last season was anomolous.  I don't see as we're any further forward with the defensive issues, not helped at all by injuries.   Cov could have been out of sight early doors, had they had a finisher....Chesterfield have Evans.  Just can't see another clean sheet.

Not sure how you can say that about the defence when today's back three will not include 1 player who played in that game last year.

Pre match carpentry in the Spa Lane Vaults.

Surprised no-one has got round to fixing the wonky spire after all these years.
Crooked spire due to lack of qualified workers following the Black Death apparently.

Anyway, good recent record here.
See no reason why there can't be another "unlikely victory" with a clean sheet today.

Same system, and more playing lads out of position due to injury....it's a wing and a prayer approach, which will get exposed sooner or later.  Evans is just the sort to make it sooner.

Chesterfield owe us one and its typical Swindon to falter kust when things are looking pretty rosey. 2-0 Chesterfield. I think we'll be a bit leggy from Wednesday

Will take an away point, as always.

We played 4 4 2 last year totally different system

I meant that we seem to be playing the wing back system favoured by Williams this season, as we did for much of last season, which led to some dodgy goals leaked.  Given the problems we've already got with lack personnel at the back, I just can't see a clean sheet....hope I'm wrong.

I do think that a lot of teams are considered "bogey teams" and this somehow seems to hold water, us vs the Pox recently, us vs Cheltenham etc etc.

Chesterfield consider us as one of their "bogey teams" and we have not lost there in 12 years, admittedly we have only played 3 games there but we have won 2 and drawn one of those.

If you go back further, right back over 31 years, we have only lost there 3 times in that period with 1 draw and 5 wins.

In fact home and away vs Chesterfield we have only suffered 1 defeat in the last 8 meetings, that being the JPT final at Wembley, we have beaten them in the last 4 matches scoring 11 goals and only conceding 1.

I remember being at Saltergate, when Kingy put out 3 at the back, Reeeeeves, Viveash and Hoofwood.  Spireites hadn't won in the first 14 or so from season's opener. Possibly the slowest back 3 in history, and we were soon undone losing 3-0.

Danny Wilson has more or less stated that their main tactic will be to press and force a mistake when we are playing out from the back (see article on Adver site).

Counter this and we should be ok.
The worry is if Norris can play the full 90 after midweek.
Doughty & Goddard should freshen up the midfield.
Maybe BOO & Furlong in at wing back and Thomas to remain as CB.

Wilson has tried to press us before, with little effect. It really isn't an easy thing to coach or to execute.

General opinion then seems to be Brophy out.harsh?

Could just be tired. But given his improvement as the game went on last week and his goal on Wednesday, if I were him, if be telling everyone how fit I was feeling.

If thats true then yes very harsh, but he did run his socks off on Wednesday for the full 120 mins, maybe his fitness levels aren't high enough to play a full 90 mins today too?

Sebastien Ruster (hands up who remembers him) came on in place of Adi after only 25 minutes, by which time we were already two goals down.  It was one of only two league appearances he made for us (both as a sub).  He managed one start in a Trophy game and one other sub appearance in the FA Cup.

Ruster....one name in the lengthy list of disappointing STFC Francophone imports. More bizarrely we had Deon Burton playing up front.

Deon was here on a one month loan while SSP was injured.  Scored one from four games.

1-1, but that'll do me

He did and he was pretty crap as well IIRC, was still playing last season for Worcester City at the age of 39, interestingly thats where Lee Hughes is now playing and hes 40!

As mentioned on another thread, we should have the resources now to rotate the wing backs if required.
In theory they should do the most running over 90mins, so would make sense to put some fresh legs in, particularly after 120mins a couple of days ago.

We certainly should be able to cope with squad rotation, its just I am an advocate of playing players who are in form.

If he played well last game or game and a half, even if hes a little tired, I would still play him and hope the form would continue.

I know thats not how football works these days though.

Chesterfield line up...

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CpvY-2MWgAA24GC.jpg:large)

Vigouroux, Thomas, Thompson (C), Sendles-White, Barry, Doughty, Kasim, Rodgers, Ormonde-Ottewill, Young, Norris

Subs: Henry, Brophy, Furlong, Stewart, Iandolo, Goddard, Hylton

harsh on brophy, good to see young in. suppose hylton will be out on loan if we get the palace kiddie

Quite a strong bench today.

Very harsh on Brophy, but after 120 minutes Wednesday, 30 of those with ten men I can see why Williams has done it.
Good to see Young starting, and nice to see a stronger bench too.

Oh, and I hope to god no one starts 'Young' Jordan Young.

Surprised to see Young start ahead of Stewart or Goddard

I'd always thought I'd seen Ruster's only town performance away at Boston on the jpt. Apparently not, learn something new everyday.

All part of the £2million to Premier League club plan.

AMIRIGHT!?!

I remember Sebastien Ruster's name well enough. I can only think he must have been prominent in a computer game if he only played twice.

Draw today.

That would be a fairytale.

I dont think prem teams start talking about fees until 10 mill.  Young player with potential?  10 mill.  Foreign player 20 mill?.  30 year old striker?  30 mill.

Harsh on goddard? Like it or not people rodgers looks like a fairly permanent fixture

We have already turned down a 6 figure bid from Chelsea for Jordan Young a year or so ago...so who knows?

Sadly, probably yes.
I think Prem and to a degree Championship clubs hoover up lower league talent more to prevent rivals getting their hands on them first.
If the player breaks through, then all well and good.
If not, then shift them on via perpetual loan and hope someone will pay up.
Always felt that LT for example would have benefited more from staying with us for another year or two as opposed to the disruption of the loans against development in a settled environment.

Yes, the Boston game was his only start (he was subbed on 84 mins).  Looking at our line-up for that game, I'm surprised there wasn't a 'Stewards' Inquiry'.   :)

His other appearances as a sub were the League losses against Chesterfield (came on at 25 mins) and Stockport (came on at 86 mins), and the FAC defeat at Wycombe (came on at 82 mins).

http://www.swindon-town-fc.co.uk/Person.asp?PersonID=RUSTERSE

There is no truth in the rumour that it was Reg who started the "Bring on the Frenchman" chant referred to.   ;D

Luke Norris injured then. Not looking good.

1-0 to them

Questions have to be asked about the frailty of our squad i feel

How have we managed 3 injuries already this season!!!?

Certainly defensively and up front. at least one more CB and Striker are needed.

We seem to be picking up lots of injuries in the last year or so, almost one bad injury every game it seems.

Awful start. Norris was injured for 10 minutes before he was subbed. Slow & clumsy so far. Vigs made 2 outstanding saves from freekick & rebound plus a couple more ti keep us in this. It has to get better.

True jj but i was thinking more of physical frailty

Sounds though were in for hideing.

Ah right, yes very much that too.

Vigs keeping us in it. Well worth the 400k price tag!

Am i being daft by thinking stewart surely rather than hylton should have replaced norris?

Cant believe hylton has come on hes a waste of space .should of let stewart come on.

We realy could could 3 or 4 down .

Penalty to them.

2-0

Hahaha I knew we'd have a mare today.

Hopefully the injured players are alright for Tuesday

There we go.

Bollocks I forgot to do my prediction. Would have been 1-1 anyway so never mind!

Absolute weak sack of shit refereeing there.  Fucking cheat

Chesterfield deservedly in front at the Proact. Town have offered nothing so far. But for Vigouroux, the deficit could be more

Fucking shit and i dont care if people call me a doom merchant. Physically weak players,shit defending week after week, tactically inept considering we apparently have a genius coach.

Not sounding good.

Sorry I don't have access to the radio at the mo...is it half time yet?

give it time.....

Never a penalty.  Evans chanced his arm against Nathan and ref bought it. Unbelievable.  We really are poor at the moment, slow build up and no movement up front. Predictable.  Vigs has been outstanding

We'll wake up in the 2nd half and win 4-2.

Keep the faith.

Thought it was a bit rash from Nathan.
No need to go into the back of their player.

Seen em given type of challenge and not too much complaint from NT.

We've got no out ball with Norris having to be withdrawn.  I reckon we'll see the Jordan's swap at some point, give Stewart a shoot on sight licence

Seems to be a repeat of the start of last season in terms of picking up injuries. How can we be so damn unlucky?

bugger. Norris loss bigger issue than the result.

I've moaned about 1 up front but I'd have brought Goddard on to try and control the midfield. Young  probably not a good idea up front on his own though.

typical town, play well v QPR then...:)

Stewart and furlong on.

Barry and young off

fucksticks. 3-0.

Game over 3-0

Fuck me

that's one way of scoring I suppose.

Would take your mind off the score as well.

for 30 seconds..

er I mean minutes..

Including ordering the pizza?

:)

3-1, furlong

And so we roll on from one season to the next, lots of possession but overwhelmed by a more powerful side.

At least a goal for the newbie

ft.

Williams out :bandwagon:

Well, that sounded crap, asides from some positive spells.

Hopefully having a physical striker on the pitch will help fix it, can't expect much with only midgets playing up front.

Another four five yellow cards picked up.

Could be worse i spose.we could be newcastle!

sounds like stuart has a spring in his step since wednesday why not give the lad a chance instead of hylton,definatley need a new striker no matter whos fit.

If 4 of your more powerful players are injured its always going to be tough. Put Branco/Jones/Obika/Norris in the team, Thomas back in Mid instead or Rogers and the team looks very different. We are still light and we need that forward and CB in as much as we did last week again now.

Wednesday night was a free hit....play well because the opponent wasn't full strength and the outcome didn't matter too much as an exit was expected.

Today's game mattered and the outcome was pretty predictable....probably a bit early to break out the alarm bell, but we really don't seem to have addressed last season's problems.  If you can't do basic defending you're not going to win too many games.

Williams: weak and pathetic looking at times. lacked energy, lacked derive until too late. to easy to blame it in Wednesday.

told players he was shocked. expected a dip or two but not to that extent.

on team changess: we have a squad. looked at amount of running brophy did, would be irresponsible to play him. Jordan Stewart showed us everything we were missing. pleased for furlong.

 Norris had done ankle, won't know more until swelling is down..

delfonso- been in touch with him, he has been out for a while...bugger my radio battery died... what did he say?

My gut instinct is that we won't see Branco or Jones any time soon. Obika frailty is a concern, maybe he might improve if still here on Sept 1.

So we have the rest of the window to sort something out.  Last season we got 8 points in August, which was a big help in us staying up, as when we dropped into the bottom 2 we never became detached.  A similar return for this August looks a bit unlikely.

We need a goalscorer though.

Williams confirms we are trying to sign Delfouneso and that Paul Crichton is likely to leave as he's had an offer from an academy in the States.

well prolific isnt he.

Chrichton exit to be confirmed as soon as he has negotiated his loyalty bonus...

Oxymoron anyone?

No need to hit the panic button yet, one win and one defeat? Exactly mid table as it stands, plenty of teams made worse starts.

;D

Sent from my SM-G935F

The alarm bell sounds before the panic button is pressed, we're not there yet.  Priestfield graveyard on Tuesday, they look to have recruited well over the summer and had a good start. Last year we got a battling point, at about the time their challenge started to peter out.  Something similar on Tuesday would be very welcome and highly unlikely....Williams will be hoping to see a reaction, I'll be hoping to avoid a humiliation.

From the Chesterfield forum:


"I do think a better opposition would have caused us a lot more problems. [Edit: No shit  :sherlock:]  Maybe I'm still comparing to Morsy & Ryan but we seem to allow the opposition far too much space in midfield.

Swindon actually knocked it about really well in stages but I'd be going away very worried if I was a Swindon fan. Thought they were terrible. Remind me of Crewe. Can play good football but do absolutely nothing with it. "

Sounds familiar...

:jawdrop:

We are the new Crewe!

Three points on the board so far is more than I thought.

Hopefully grind out a few more to keep us safe.

couple of tricky games coming up with the pikeys and gas. I reckon 3 points from next 3 games..

as ever, end of September is when the alarm bells will start to sound if things don't pick up. I think they will though.... if injuries heel

I love how 1 win and 1 loss means some people panic and go stupidly negative..

Somethings never change, I guess.

We were fucked as soon as Norris went off, just our luck to have both him and Obika out at the same time. 

Bad day at the office made even worse by the morons in the crowd.  Guy in front of me exclaiming that Thomas was only in defense to accommodate Rodgers in midfield, completely, and rather conveniently, ignoring the fact we had nobody else to play there.  Then laughing at Rodgers all game with his group of lads who were all 30 years his junior, any mistake ironically cheered, of course if Kasim made any errors it didn't matter.

People lamenting our keeping possession and not 'getting if forward' completely missing the point we had no focal point leading the line then jeering when we do play it slightly more direct when that doesn't work.

People making their minds up that we're shit.

I wonder how different people would see 2 draws and 2 points rather than 1 win, 1 loss and 3 points.

I really do wonder what motivates some people to go.  If you don't like how we're doing things frankly I'd rather you didn't go to be honest.  Sick of people complaining about things, we're all fully aware of what to expect so you either get on with it and accept it for what it is or you go somewhere else.

We'll be fine when the window shuts.

We may have been fine today had Norris not gone off, we sounded lively up until then. (Although so did Chesterfield). Of course we will never know how we would have done, but I doubt anybody would expect us to be at all potent with Hylton as our only striker. Even Ajose would have struggled in that role.

We have 2 big guys at the club now, 3 if Delfuonse (sp?). Just our luck that we had none available for most of the match.

My sentiments exactly.

I think some people just want to be fucking miserable, personally.

Leave Reg alone he's having a great Saturday evening ;)

no not panic, I just think the next few weeks will be tricky as things are.

I do too... but it's not too bad a return considering we all thought we were entirely fucked.

At least we have 3 points.. every cloud  :D

 :D :D

Even Williams said we were pathetic, if you've made the effort and expense to go and watch that, then you're entitled to be pissed off, if you so desire.

Yeah I guess you do.

It all depends on mindset, I guess.

Being pissed off at a poor performance is understandable, acting as though it means we are terrible with no chance of improving is not. 

Being shit at the start is not a worry and we got three points on the board!

My expectations are mid table at best so I'm not too bothered.

In a way it could be a good thing we had a shit result like today before the window closes. Highlights very clearly to the powers that be, that we need more bodies in certain areas.

I Don't expect anything from the pikeys game but another signing around then would see me happy enough at this stage of the season with 3 points.

Just read back, if Williams said that was pathetic, good to see he's got standards....seen far more abject performances than that in our recent past with no such public declarations by the incumbent.

Thought Chesterfield looked a well-drilled, well-organised side, we did have a go at times but just couldn't find a way through. Their right winger was a thorn in our side throughout, whatever views are on Evans, he'll score a hatful at this level as he did before his spell sewing mailbags. Special mention to Vigs, they could have been well out of sight earlier than half time but for his efforts. Actually thought we may have a shout if we could have made it to half time just a goal behind, very soft penalty to concede though and that was pretty much that. Another good little cameo from Stewart following Wednesday, deserves a place in the starting line up.

Atrocious refereeing at times aside and the loss of Norris as others have mentioned, we were beaten by a side more competent in pretty much every department. Not really any consolation but we didn't look devoid of ideas as we did in the dark days last September and October. May live to regret saying it but, having watched us today and at QPR, think we'll finish pretty much similar to where we ended up last season.

One last thing, seen other people comment about moaning at the players. You pay your money, you're entitled to your opinion - as long as they put a shift in, personally don't see the point in getting stuck into them, the likes of Hylton look short enough on confidence as it is.

Are the 'lowlights' available?

On sky sports website.

http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/competitions/league-one/10535488/chesterfield-3-1-swindon (http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/competitions/league-one/10535488/chesterfield-3-1-swindon)

soft pen but he did slightly nudge him. then again every corner should result in a penalty if consistency applied

Foolish from Thompson, just shoulder barged him in the back. Absolutely needless.

Last season we conceded sack loads of pens.....it happens because the defenders are under duress. To prevent this happening in theory you should be keeping possession of the ball further up the park.  This is why we start slowly, trying to keep the ball as a defensive tactic.  Unfortunately, we're way too easy to play against.....Wilson pretty  much summed it up with his pre match comments having watched us on Wednesday.

We need a bit more tactical flexibilty. I would say that the loss of 2 CB's, should mean going to 4-4-2, or even 4-5-1.  OK we got away with it v Cov, but won't against most teams in this league, given the available personnel.

Back in Feb when we got a 0-0 at Priestfield we played 4 at the back, 3 of whom are available for Tuesday...the more defensive mids, were Rodgers, Kasim and Doughty.....so it can be done.

This is what we needed yesterday, not just in preparation for a match but during it.  When we lost Norris we simply replaced him with Hylton & played the same way we'd set up for.  Flexible tactics (plan B) is something we need desperately, revised formations etc. 

I hate Plan B - never use it - C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y and Z are fine
Please don't push for Plan B

plan b has a real sting in it's tale