Thetownend.com

Hovering above the relegation zone, awful performance Saturday, discontent amongst supporters, crowds dwindling...Power still doing a good job?

Clearly he isn't but let's not pretend he has been awful from day one. It went wrong last season and he put it right with the appointment of Ling. He can't be blamed for what happened there.

If he doesn't act soon then yes he has fucked up so let's wait and see

If he appoints a decent manager with a decent budget then credit to him. Unfortunately I think he will look for the cheap option who will have to rely on players no-one else wants. Saturday was a disgrace, 4 home league defeats already is embarrassing.

I still have my reservations re Power and what his eventual legacy will turn out to be, but we should be doing better with the squad we have.

That's down to Williams - the players brought in are decent enough. He's had a long, long time to fashion a competent defence but seems incapable of doing so. For that reason, he should be out.

It's 5

Get in the right manager and we could be in the playoff places come Christmas.

It's all ifs and buts though of course.....

What is massively frustrating is the league is really poor yet we are struggling. If Power had shown a little more ambition then we could well be in those play off places. Realistically, if Williams departs who can we expect?

For me, overall.. yes he is doing a good job. Room for improvement on many aspects but I like the idea of running a sustainable club getting in younger players and developing them and (trying...) to play decent football. It's the stubborn nature of it all that's the most frustrating. I also wish he'd start thinking longer term... The ground needs more than a lick of paint and the marketing side of things leaves a lot to be desired.

On the pitch can't really complain. One alright season, one very good season, one naff season, and one season that looks naff again... We are a League One club so we're at our level. I think he has put too much faith in Williams.

I don't see him as the villain many see him as (or want him to be).

Define a little more ambition?

This is where i disagree slightly. He has spent money and got some decent loans. Ok not helped by injury but most of our problems are down to management not really powers reluctance to invest in my opinion

Perhaps with Obika, Doughty and Jones we would have been.

We have made some goods signings. To suggest we are lacking ambition is myopic to say the least.

Define a little more ambition? Maybe I expect more but Power has done well with revenue received from players who have departed. Aside from Vigirouz and Norris, we have relied on loans and free transfers. Why could we have not paid fees and made more permanent singings? I simply cannot accept the dross we are currently putting up with, I hope Power proves me wrong and appoints some a decent manager and gives them a decent budget.

We do have a decent budget, we have also spent in excess of 500k this season on transfers. That is a lot for a club our size.

I don't have the figures to hand but hasn't Power previously put a fortune into stabilising the club (including when he was funding Jed), paying off debts etc and noticeably reducing the risk of another administration so I suspect in line with the sustainable model most player revenue has gone on reimbursing the investments/loans he has made previously, not seen any evidence as yet that he has turned down money from others investing in the club?

we are too short of firepower to get above mid table imo.

Power had gone down the road we had to go down in terms of self sustainability. Assuming he's being honest with us on that front, to be honest I don't trust him as far as I could throw him.

And that lack of trust comes solely from what I'd call a closed shop approach. Doing the right thing the wrong way is how I'd phrase it. 

Don't want to go round and round those circles again tbh. I won't be calling for his head, but you reap what you sow on that front.

Obviously I'd rather have a Lansdown or a Majeski in charge and shaping the clubs long term future with their money and drive. I'd also like to win the lottery too.

On the pitch it's garbage, the insistence of playing the Swindon way on a possession stats based system is frustrating. we've seen it work for 3/4 season, it was great. since then garbage. it's got to be addressed be it by Power, Williams or whoever makes us play plod predictable football .

The thing is would increased spend on marketing actually achieve anything, if he reads this forum he will see a plethora of posts to the effect of saying 'I am not going to that match as Power has not come round to my house wearing a sandwich board requesting that I attend' so in light of the limited budget available I wonder whether the money is being directed to where in can make a difference and hence the c.£500k spent on players?

This lifted directly from the ever wonderful http://www.swindon-town-fc.co.uk/ I think illustrates the problems we have....

Brad BARRY's next appearance will be his 50th for the club.

Rossi Branco RAPHAEL's next appearance will be his 100th for the club.

Nathan THOMPSON's next league appearance will be his 150th for the club in this competition.

Not only does it illustrate how much Thompson must have been injured or suspended over the last few years, but also how many games players which probably are not quite there have made over a couple of seasons.

Byrne
Luongo
Barker
Smith
Obika
Gladwin
Stewart
Goddard
Vigoroux
Norris

All signed for a fee.

Tijane Reis
Ryan Harley
Ty Belford
Yaser Kasim
Raphael Rossi Branco
Nile Ranger
Dany N'Guessan
Mohamed El-Gabbas
Anton Rodgers
Jake Reeves
Jermaine Hylton
Cameron Belford
Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill
Drissa Traore
Fabien Robert
Ellis Iandolo
James Brophy
Brad Barry
Jeremy Balmy
Nicky Ajose
Henrik Ojamaa
Mamour Bangoura
Jamie Sendles-White
Conor Thomas
Nathan Delfouneso
Sean Murray

All signed permanently. Yeah we've received a lot in transfers out, but I'm fairly certain he inherited a club with huge debts that runs at a loss.

Kinda get your point re. relying on loans, but the class of loan we had in certainly helped push us in. Good way to get quality players without having spend too much ££.

If 'ambition' means signing more players on bigger wages...  Look at Gillingham. They've added big name (if you can call them that) players on decent wages and gone backwards. We did the same after 09/10 and it did us no good. The real problem is there's no right answer.

I do accept that Power is trying to run a sustainable model and unfortunately that is going to take a lot of patience. The new training ground sounds like its coming along but we are not going to see the bearing of fruits from this for a while, hopefully its going to see more talented young players coming through with the better facilities.

My frustration is the way we play, whilst its 'admirable' that we are trying to play 'total football' I just don't think it can work at our level. The tempo is far too slow, the passes need to be crisp and sharp and Division 3 footballers generally aren't good enough with balls fizzed into feet etc. We have scored 2 very good goals this season that I would say was down to total football, (Murray's at home to Northampton and Obika's goal away at Oldham.) but we just aren't going to be able to do it every week.

Our set pieces are my main bugbear. I guess we were spoiled by PDC's side with some well worked corners and some of our free kick routines were a joy to watch. We don't appear to do ANY practice on set pieces at all.

Finally, it maybe just me but we seem to be bullied by a lot of sides, how many away teams come to the CG, are bigger and stronger than us. The second ball retention seems to be so poor. I did read that Tom Smith made a difference in the Rochdale game but we are so powder puff at times.

Its all a bit boring for me. I find myself going to less and less games, the atmosphere is sterile, the numbers are down, the tempo makes us appear to be lacklustre. I just can't be bothered getting on a train, paying £60-80 for a Saturday where the product makes me want to tear my hear out.

I don't know the answer. I am behind LP but I think he needs to change. His lack of interaction with the press irritates me as well. We should have a much better relationship with the Adver and the local press. Alienating them is just foolish in my eyes.

Martin Ling made it work.

 When you're on a tight budget there's little margin for error. Nobody gets them all right, even Danny Williams, for every Joe Butler or Peter Noble, there was a Ken Keyworth or Barry Lowes.

 There's some right dross in your list Tails, and only to be expected, when you're operating at the bottom of the market.

 It's OK if amongst the dregs you find a nugget or 2, but at the moment we're struggling to get these new lads up to a satisfactory Div 3 speed let alone anything better.

If Williams is relieved of his duties, who can we expect? Cotterell is a tit but given a little resource would take us up the table.

There is some garbage yeah.

But this is where the complaint about loans is interesting... If you could sign a Ryan Mason on loan for a season or a Bangoura permanently, where would you go? We can get better players if we use the loan market.

As I said before, there is no right answer. Every signing is a gamble. Every managerial appointment is a gamble. The two things we really seem to miss (on the pitch) is fitness and discipline... Two things that can take push players / teams with limited ability up the table in this league.

I think its a style that when it works is great and when it doesn't is obviously shit!, there were plenty of Man City fans making the same complaints at the weekend and also see likewise about England.

It is all about ability and lower league players don't tend to have it, I remember commenting a couple of years back that there was no point playing out from the back if the defenders did not have the ability to pick a pass to play it, its all about adapting to the personnel you have, they may able to train it into them but could take years!


Set pieces seem to be shit in football generally at the moment, how many corners at whatever level seem to fail to beat the first man?


That's the problem with playing kids unfortunately, the amount of times our players get kicked to shit and nothing happens and then the ball goes up to their wily centre forward, he gets nudged, goes down for a foul and our player gets booked - sadly I think they could do with coaching some cynicism into our team.


Serious question, does anyone actually read the Adver anymore, their website (like all local media/paper websites) is shit and crap to use, whilst their sports reporting is a fine example of churnalism with it being obvious that they do not bother to dedicate anyone to actually report on the club? No doubt Power could do better although I don't recall any chairman doing monthly interviews live and seeking to answer questions, but would it actually achieve anything positive?

Total sport get interviews all the time, it's only the adver that are not allowed. And fuck them anyway.

That is a fair point. The difference being that we had a goalscorer in that side and a consistently decent front 2.

I do think Ajose did get him out of a pickle more than once or twice. How many late equalisers or winners did he seem to score that season? Not saying we were lucky every week mind you! Ling did seem to give us that kick in the balls we desperately needed.

This season we have been caught out with the loan system being discontinued in its previous form. You only had to look at our bench Saturday to see how threadbare the squad is due mainly to injury and the odd suspension. I recall Luke Williams saying earlier he was happy working with a reduced squad, well patently that has come back and bitten us pretty badly.

Personally I like the possession football we play but we lack that incisiveness in the final third and everyone knows that we are missing the regular goalscorer that every team needs. Unfortunately they do not grow on trees so do we go route one hit and hope and expect Delfouneso/Obika (when fit!) to be on the end of every ball? I think not under the current way we play.

Whether Messrs. Power and Williams can sort this mess out very quickly then we are in for a long old remainder of the season that does not bode well.

Most of the late goals were scored under early Luke....Lingy had a big advantage in that we could get in short term loans like Louis, Gladwin and El-Abd, to help out with injuries. No doubt if the rules hadn't changed we'd be doing similar now.

Back in the summer Scunny took Josh Morris from Blackburn, on a free, he'd previously kicked around on loan at a few clubs mostly Fleetwood and scored 11 in 124 appearances. 

This season 13 in 15.....now that's the sort of turd polishing Power would like to see. Goes to show it can be done.

Ling did make it work but he was also backed heavily in the loan market. That allowed him to play a different way - to 'break' the team between defence and attack and rely on Ben Gladwin to join the two up. Without him, it really wouldn't have worked, much as doing the same didn't work on Saturday.

It also gave him options - whatever you think of William's performance, he really doesn't have any at the moment - reduced to bringing on Brad Barry on the wrong flank to make a tit of himself because we have so many injuries.

I reckon Delf could score a few for us. Somebody finally spotted one of his runs against Rochdale..... and he put it away.

Its hardly as if the change in the loan rules came as a surprise, we all knew it was coming. The worry is more how injury prone our players seem to be although it could be just that the way we play encourages a kicking - see Arsenal also being very injury prone?

Did he though?

I loved Ling as boss but his results were very up and down, we won 5 and lost 4 with a terrible away defeat at Fleetwood of 5-1 which must go down as one of our worst ever performances, yet the next 3 games after he left we got 7 points from.

Rochdale (A)     1-3 L
Scunthorpe (H) 2-1 W
Fleetwood (A)    1-5 L
Walsall (H)        2-1 W
Chesterfield (A)  4-0 W
Rochdale (H)      2-1 W
Shrewsbury (A)  1-0 W
Gillingham (H)    1-3 L
Burton (A)          0-1 L

The next 3 games after Ling left were...

Southend (H)     4-2 W
Crewe Alex (H)   4-3 W
Sheffield U (A)   1-1 L

Luke Williams first 12 games in charge were 6 wins, 4 draws and 2 defeats.

That's a very interesting list of players - or, at least, the make up of it.

A quick, approx count, reveals 22 midfielders, 6 strikers and 2 CBs.

This is one of the failures of the recruitment policy - it's been so unbalanced. Defenders have almost universally been loans and freebies.  It's almost as if Power only sees any value in recruiting midfielders.

Can we go back to your method where a 1-1 counts as a win?  ;) :D

Ling had the system working. We were passing the ball as per our philosophy, while threatening on the attack and being secure at the back. (Or at least more secure than usual). This was also with a team that he had no input to in terms of recruitment. I'm not just referring to results, I am also referring to making it work to provide decent performances.

Although he did make it work results wise as well. Winning 5 in 9 is promotion form.

Well, both Kasim and Rodgers put lovely balls into his feet on Saturday and only once did he get a shot away. Not blaming him but he isn't quite on it at the moment all the time.

He didn't really have a proper pre-season so I guess is not as 'match sharp' as he could be.

Which is a bit of a guess, he could be just like a jigsaw and go to pieces in the box.

Oops yes we can :)

I just remember us playing the system any better under Ling than under Cooper, just the players and fans seemed more behind Ling than Cooper. I could be wrong as my memory is crap lately.

LW's first 12 games in charge, 6 wins, 4 draws and 2 defeats is promotion form too but we didn't carry that form on till the end of the season.

It was actually 5 from 8. Rochdale was a cup game, so doesn't count when considering league matters.  When you get into trouble like we did early doors last season, then you need something like PO form in order to get out of the mire.  The Iffy season after we lost a record 8 on the spin, we only lost 3 of the next 20, but the damage had been done.

We're not quite there yet this season....but the home form, will need to pick probably from the next game, to avoid getting into quicksand.

Except at least one of the three centre back slots has been consistently taken by a long-term loanee (Turnbull - until this season) and frequently more, including Stephens, Williams, Lelan and now Lloyd Jones.

*Tangent* Josh Lelan is now a Kenya international.

Please continue....

8 starts and 2 sub appearances. if he isn't fit and match sharp now he never will be

Which raises the point that Cooper had it working us well, well enough for us to reach a playoff-final in fact. Our best finish in 15(?) seasons. Another example that it can work. Granted we had more quality in that squad, but we should still be doing better than we are. The current manager just isn't up to it.

Absolutely, I think a change in leadership can and will work wonders even with the squad we have without additions, but with the right additions then it could go a lot further with some direction, fitness and team cohesion and spirit.

Tbh I get bored shirtless watching this team play. It'd slow, boring and predictable ans also really easy to combat and play against. Sometimes it does work but it's very rarely. Why we persist with it I'll never know. You don't get out of this league playing tippy tappy bollocks with average players. You either need different tactics or higher quality players with the same tactics for it to work.

There is no buzz around the club. Media output is awful and when did we last hear from Power himself? Ages ago. Is there really a longer term plan or is he simply just blogging it? I'm going with the latter.

I wouldn't mind reading Lee Power's blog. You have access to this blog Rich?

The media output is great if you love emojis!

Saturday on the radio

On a serious note though I don't understand this need to constantly hear from the chairman. Which clubs have chairmen that are that active with the fanbase? There's not that many, minus the ones on social media.

Get Jed and his cryptic tweets back!

Two quick things - first season data but we were scoring about 2.3% of our corners under PDC - which is worse than 'average' for most seasons (about 2.5%). https://thewashbag.com/2012/04/26/taking-the-long-view-on-short-corners/

I mention is as I just saw this - current Prem data https://twitter.com/SimonGleave/status/790448830219165696 that a lot of teams aren't 'good' at them, unless Pullis is in charge but it will be a team's only shot in that game.

:)

Power is on BBC Wilts almost every game pre match.

Not enough experience in the side to compliment the young talent.
Look poor in both boxes, attacking and defending. Naive and lacking a nasty streak to the side.

It seems I was wrong about the corners, but I didn't imagine Benson scoring from a number of well-worked free kick routines did I?

Seems not much has changed since that washbag article in 2012 then!

Forget Williams....this is spot on for me. You can see it from space last season.

Big experienced man in midfield to win headers and put people up in the air and lay it off to the footballers. Also come up at corners and threat in the air.

One at the back would be good too.

Never going to happen. Experience costs money and signing a player at 28/30 gives Power no sell on potential.

Williams, Robinson, Cotterill, AN Other this issue will not go away and its sticks out like a sore thumb this season....last year we got away with it....

You had Matt Ritchie taking the set pieces, there in lies the difference.

Shame really because one or two older heads would complement the ones with 'potential' & allow them to flourish & develop thus reaching their value at which Power wants to sell them at sooner.

Not Sure I agree with the whole experience thing. Branco and Thompson have 250 between them alone. Kasim is hardly inexperienced and neither is Obika

Which makes me question whether only being allowed in the country 90 days a year is still the case  :hmmm:

Think we're talking more along the likes of a Greer/Douglas type here, somebody who has games & ability to go with it, especially at this level. As opposed to a Hewlett/Reeves type who may well have had games on their CV but lacked any real talent/game changing ability.

Any news on the training ground ?

Any news on the Nigel Eady money?   :sherlock:

They train there...

 Despite all the wrist slitting on here, we are 3 points better off than last season at the same stage.  We do have a few bodies who might add something if they ever get back fit, so we're not down yet. The Scunny game and Eastleigh games could be a bit of write off, and Eastleigh being on the box might mean viewing from

 :sofa:

But the next home game is against, in the eyes of some, another basket case club with a dodgy owner. 

It's a 12:00 KO so I'm assuming Sky, must be another international break we haven't had one for a fortnight  >:(.   So what better time than to join with the Addicks fans, in a pig protest, I'd suggest orange for us pink for them.  Mr Box get on it  :)

Getting the ball through the Windmill ,bounce  it off the roof of the security van .  :toocool:

Awful predictive text scenes.

The style of play argument is pretty redundant. There's no style of play that is guaranteed to win games. I'm sure I saw a statistic earlier that Shrewsbury play the most direct passes in League One and they are bottom.

The issue is our current playing squad is still unbalanced and lacks quality, especially in the wide areas. Rodgers and Branco were regarded as weak links in 2014/15 but are now mainstays of the team. Until that's fixed we are going to continue to be very, very average.

Is that as average as it is possible to be? Like optimum averageness?

Its 90 nights, so if he flies in in the morning, and flies back after game, it doesn't count as one of those 90.

I am pretty sure there are lots of loopholes in this rule anyway and I am 100% certain that Mr Power will have explored all the avenues available to him as he has some good lawyers.

That makes it more plausible. Does anybody know if he still has other business interests or is his time dedicated solely to STFC these days?

I am pretty sure a lot of his time is taken up with horse racing.

Have I missed something? what does being on radio before matches have to do with him only being allowed in the country 90 days a year? There's only 46 league games in a season and he doesn't attend all of them.

Yes but don't forget with cup matches thats 49 maximum ;) he must hate the Checkatrade Trophy cos that means 51 games now :D

Re Lee Power's non-resident status, he might be allowed to be in the UK more/less than 90 days per tax year.  It depends upon the number of ties that he has with the UK in accordance with the Statutory Residency Test.

I'm still at a loss.

He could attend all matches, home and away, hang around for horse racing on Sundays and STILL have days to spare.

Shhhh we need something to moan about.

Ooops, sorry.

I'll get back under my rock.  ;)

He bought a horse in 2014 (Well Painted) but he don't own it now

then reinvested it in a few donkeys in 2016.

badum tish

So that's where the money's gone - on all those fucking ties.

This is quite interesting from 5 live last night (Apologies it has Danny Mills on it), but from about an hour in Sean Dyche has some interesting stuff to say about player development much of which seemed quite pertinent to our position and approach.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08020w8