Stevenage v Swindon Town Official Matchday Thread

[Reg Smeeton]

The fixtures keep on a-comin' in February.

Sat: Lincoln (a)
Tue: Accrington (a)
Sat: Mansfield (h)
Tue: Wycombe (a)
Sat: Port Vale (h)
Sat: Chesterfield (a)

A horrible run of games, up to Valentine's Day but we've got the midweek monkey off the back, and made a start. Which is why today was important, hopefully no injuries. 

[Sir red ken]

I do believe cautious optimism is spreading

I'm going to stay glum, I've supported the town too long for any kind of optimism. Hurts when it all goes Pete Tong.

[Super Hans]

Even our better teams that i can remember would have struggled on a cold Tuesday night in Stevenage.

Fantastic win. Autos are there to be taken.

Credit where it's due Flitcroft has managed to find a winning formula away from home and we've won our last 3 at The County Ground.

[Bob's Orange]

Atrocious game of football but a win is a win. Hard to pick a man of the match in those kind of games but I thought Lancashire seemed to win a lot of headers so shades it for me.

Real good shift by the team but a severe lack of any quality on the pitch bar a few nice touches by Elsnik.

Another toughy on Saturday.

[RobertT]

5 wins from last 6 games, 3 clean sheets in there and 3 home wins on the bounce.
Not bad, give him a new contract  

 He's lucky I'm not around :-)

This league is a farce, call it off.  Lets just move to the play offs now and get it over and done with.  It's almost unthinkable that kids who were probably pretty stellar with the ball at feet can turn into adult pro's that produce this level of shit.

Great result - the most depressing march to the play offs I've witnessed.  Imagine if I supported one of the other teams in this league!  Reg, is this how it feels to be you?

[Costanza]

L2, man. Why do we do this to ourselves?

[BambooToTheFuture]

As it stands. So Wycombe won and it's now only 6pts separating 9 teams. Even if we only get a point from Lincoln on Saturday we still have that crunch match versus Accrington next week. The football aside, two stand-out positives from the last two matches; Another home win (Is that three home wins on the spin in the league? Yes it is) and a win on a Tuesday night (as well as getting our away form back on track). Win against Lincoln on Saturday and that'll really apply the pressure on the top 3.

   Team              P   GD   Pts
_____________________________
1   Luton           30           36   60
2   Wycombe     29           15   52
3   Notts Count  29           16   51
======================
4   Coventry       29   13   50
5   Mansfield      29           11   50
6   Swindon       29             5   50
7   Accrington    28           14   49
----------------------------------------
8   Lincoln City   29           13   48
9   Exeter          27             5   48
10   Newport       30             5    46

I've now predicted our last four matches; W, L, W, W (see v Barnet thread) with a draw predicted for Lincoln. I think we can do a number on the Imp men though. It's certainly going to be a tight one for autos and the play-off spots. There's going to be some extremely miffed faces come May. Fans wondering if their team has only won or drawn one more match or scored a few more goals they could be in the play-offs, even in an automatic spot. My belief is you manifest these things. I don't think many of us have truly believed we can make autos or what not. The style of play doesn't help and I'm still not sold on the manager taking us any further than promotion. However as the results keep scraping in, and the points keep getting accrued, i'm starting to believe that we can do it. The last two results should have given the lads some confidence that they can win from behind and work hard to grind out an important win. Success breeds success and now we should really get behind Town and push for the autos in this final third of the season. !

[Quagmire]

He's lucky I'm not around :-)

This league is a farce, call it off.  Lets just move to the play offs now and get it over and done with.  It's almost unthinkable that kids who were probably pretty stellar with the ball at feet can turn into adult pro's that produce this level of shit.

Great result - the most depressing march to the play offs I've witnessed.  Imagine if I supported one of the other teams in this league!  Reg, is this how it feels to be you?

It’s not just you though.
I’m no Flitcroft fan, in fact I never thought I’d be happy to see the back of a manager despite being in a play off position. As DV always said, it’s a result business, but fuck me I couldn’t watch this much longer.
The standard of this league has dropped DRAMATICALLY since we were last down here, and it’s clear for all to see. Part of me wonders if maybe, just maybe DF could get a half decent team together if we were to be promoted.
The other half of me can’t wait to see the back of him and this awful excuse of a professional football league.

[Bogus Dave]

It’s not just you though.
I’m no Flitcroft fan, in fact I never thought I’d be happy to see the back of a manager despite being in a play off position. As DV always said, it’s a result business, but fuck me I couldn’t watch this much longer.
The standard of this league has dropped DRAMATICALLY since we were last down here, and it’s clear for all to see. Part of me wonders if maybe, just maybe DF could get a half decent team together if we were to be promoted.
The other half of me can’t wait to see the back of him and this awful excuse of a professional football league.

I think Flitcroft has got a half decent team here tbf, he just insists on playing shitty pinball

[Pax Romana]

Just got in, haven't had time to read back but hopefully we played well.

Either way that's a great result. 

[Wobbly Bob]

Good stuff. One of those where Stevenage could play until next week and beyond and not look like scoring.

We weren't much better, but did enough with a solid performance.

10th away win and closing in on a club record.
Most of the remaining away fixtures look tricky.

All to play for.

[Not that Nice If I'm Honest]

Just got back.
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I only get to a few games a season, so don't really know who the players are, so can't comment on who played well or didn't.

A few of observations -

- It was a fucking awful watch
- Defense - generally criticised on here - were pretty good, never really under threat
- attack - generally lauded on here - were pretty awful

Someone said earlier that this division has gone downhill - couldn't agree more - really enjoyed the Macari years, they played a direct game with urgency and speed. We play a direct game that just fizzles out when our player is confronted by a defender.

I was lucky enough to sit next to the father of one of our players (I won't say who because that wouldn't be fair, but he played pretty well tonight)
He said that the players would all prefer to play more football, but are told the way to play, down the channels etc
But they all respect Flitcroft, and accept that they need to use a game plan that gets them out of this division. The problem is at home, when they get abuse for "launching it down the channel" when that is exactly what they are told to do.

It's awful football, but I think it's starting to show that it may just get us straight out of this hell hole.
Then hopefully..........we will play better football.
And if Flitcroft gets us there, he probably deserves the chance to prove he has more than one dimension

[Posh Red]

The exact opposite of last season, an ugly performance low & quality but high on effort.

Fair play to Flitcroft, he looked at how we lost the cup game there & basically set us up so that wouldn’t happen again.

It wasn’t great, but I’d rather we play ugly & win

[WestYorksRed]

First game I've been to since Norwich in the league cup and I really enjoyed the feast of free flowing football on offer....Stevenage were dreadful and, other than take our one clearcut chance, we didn't have to be much better. Very attritional, haven't been much the last couple of seasons, nevertheless can't recall having seen us win a match like that for a long while. Didn't make for great viewing, take the three points though every time.

[JoeMezz]

The exact opposite of last season, an ugly performance low & quality but high on effort.

Fair play to Flitcroft, he looked at how we lost the cup game there & basically set us up so that wouldn’t happen again.

It wasn’t great, but I’d rather we play ugly & win

Win games like that and we'll get out of the league. It's very ugly, but the sooner we get out of this division the better. To be honest, I was quite bored watching some of Williams football... at least we do put the ball in the box.