Thetownend.com

Another long journey.

I'll go for a 3-1 town win, Norris, Woolery and Linganzi

I'll take that!

Making my first appearance of the season. I think I'll make sure I have a squad list with me, so I know who's who. Eric Bartholomew's home town. On the advice of an agent, he changed his surname to that of this home town. I wonder if the statue is near the ground.

Think they might just edge us out based on nothing but the feeling that I might be getting too overconfident about our chances this season. 0-1

Sent from my SM-G930F

Will take a point.

Should win. Draw not a disaster.

Pre match sunshine, smiles and laughter in The Eric Bartholomew.
Eric's statue is a fine thing and a visit should cheer up even the grumpiest of souls.

Looks a bit mean & moody across the bay.
The spirits of lost cockle pickers are not resting easy today.

If shrimps were land creatures then they would be viewed as creepy crawlies that nobody would want to eat.

First clean sheet today and the curse of the former player to strike someone else for a change.

Intriguing that they have a Steampunk festival here.
A celebration of faded Victoriana I guess.
Wonder if Reg is an honorary president of "The League of Splendid" and will be turning up to the next "A Splendid Weekend" in October.
The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, good band, check out "Boilerplate Daniel".

Would take a draw today. Think this is a tough game but rather play them away today than a winter's evening game on a midweek. Although I reckon this current lot would be able to handle these things better.

Wouldn't it be great to be in the mix from the start of the season to the finish.  Another 3 points would put us right up there.  I hope we go in to every game this season thinking that a win is a realistic possibility.

Still no idea who most of the players are or whether they're any good at football, so I'll leave the intelligent comment to others.

Very early days and I'd be happy with a draw. At least we'll scrap. Mullin should be interesting today - he's a bit spiky.

2-1 Town

I agree. I can't see him not celebrating if he scores against his old club, as has become the fashion in recent years.

Should be a rather comfortable 3-1 win.

Me too!

 No idea yet what to expect. Have we started to achieve being competitive and hard to beat or not  :hmmm:

 

Draw.

Hopefully Vigs is back

Eugghh! Nasty shock looking at the Lg One table this am by the way.

Difficult to have much of an idea. We're flaky but potent I feel.  A gutsy scoredraw?

Swindon Town XI vs Morecambe: Vigouroux, Purkiss, Conroy, Lancashire (C), Hussey, Dunne, Linganzi, McDermott, Woolery, Norris, Mullin #STFC

SWINDON TOWN SUBS: Henry, Thomas, Robertson, Brophy, Iandolo, T Smith, H Smith
#stfc

Yeah, The Men are a good band.

Woolery, Norris and Mullin. Interesting

Eric 0 The Don 2

The bloody iFollow's bolloxed again... what a waste of hundred quid. :badmood:

It's ok on my Android phone

So How do I get video and commentary? I only seem to be able to get one or the other

I'm trying to watch it on my Android phone too, but the video just keeps loading for ages (I have a rather fast broadband so it's not the connection).

EDIT: working now. Finally!

Nevermind, got it now

How? I only get the video.

Is it worth it for the commentary or is it still choppy af?

Get in!

https://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/898911555915579395? (https://twitter.com/i/videos/tweet/898911555915579395?)

McDermott 0-1

Been watching for 5 minutes with no commentary, assumed we were in Red and 1-0 down...

Great strike. It looks like McDermott can only just about walk let alone run looking at that clip. Nice goal though.

What platform are people watching it on?

Where have you been?

Ifollow..

It's fine for me.

Is that the new STFC Player? No wonder it wouldn't sign me in!

Having followed all games this season so far on social media, I'm convinced we spend most games defending corners.

Far from convincing. We're winning, though.

I will take that, looks like we are playing in a wind tunnel.  From about 30 mins Morecambe realised this fact and put us under long ball pressure that you'd expect.  Tough to get out when the ball won't reach the halfway line.  Back four have been steady, Purkiss really doesn't fancy going forward at all.  Midfield a bit better I thought.  Upfront, very little opportunity as the ball keeps coming up short.  McDermott tries to do too much on the ball I think, but great finish.  Interesting to see how the 2nd half pans out with the wind at our backs.  It won't be pretty, and it hasn't been thus far.

But the good news is that we are defending not fucking around with no purpose.

Newport winning at Coventry.  We are top of the league as it stands!!!

I do like that green kit

Has anyone else seen the muppet Walsall fan on Twitter who was bragging about the cheap hotel he booked 11 miles from Pompey for todays game?

Turns out it was on the Isle of Wight..   :doh:

oxford 1-0 down
Go from top to fifth

 :D It sort of reminds me of an Oxford fan some years ago who got Tonbridge and Royal Tunbridge Wells mixed up and booked train tickets to the wrong place.

Surely a wind up Bernie, would love it to be true though!

Nice goal, looks so simple.

Reading the few comments on here seems were were fortunate in the first half to be winning. Are we going to be one of those teams, the ones where the opposition proclaim to wonder how the hell we are doing so well in the league (crosses fingers)... Frankly who cares.

Job done.

Great win. Would have taken a draw all day long.

100% in the league on the road.

Get in...

Grind it out!!

Very decent result

It wasn't fortunate, bar the last few minutes we had control of the result (not the game, if you get what I mean).  2nd half was just as expected, professional.  Think they had two chances in the game.  It might not be a very entertaining season, but we seem capable of getting goals from the front four.  It's all very 1980's!

Splendid.

sounded like a gritty performance, I keep seeing comments that our defence is awful but we are grinding out results in Carlisle and Morecambe, I am more than happy with them except we need cover for Hussey.

Roll on next weekend, home to Crawley who are still point-less, could be a good scoring win or potential for a slip up.

1-0 scrappy win at northern grounds are what get you promoted. Team spirit and organisation reminds me of macari/wise/sturrock and di canio teams which all got promoted. Cautiously optimistic.

Looks like we've been drilled on shape, the midfield two were in exactly the same position every time we had a throw in, must have been 10 yards apart, one slightly behind the other, both behind the ball, when we were attacking.  I imagine very few teams will play like Exeter, so the plan is clearly 7 players sticking to positions and a front 4 winning games for us, with Hussey adding some width from time to time.

Excellent result.  Pleasing to hear the commentators saying that the two central defenders were immense as well. Another long distance result ground out.  Seems like we've got the team spirit that's been missing for the last couple of seasons. Keep it up Town.

McDermott was definitely playing with lead in his boots, he must be a long way short of fitness 9I hope).  There is probably a good player in him, if only he could move.

Town win, Scum lose - decent weekend. Its good to have a team again. Given the team still gelling results have been excellent and better than I could have hoped for. Roll on next week. Enjoying my football again.

Great result but a painful watch.

Get in front away from home, defend properly, play the percentages and let the innate uselessness of most teams at this level do the rest. Seems like a good way to go at the moment.

Good turnout & great support.

It's a results business and we are getting results. 2 wins at tough northern locations and a good point at home to a side who will be up there this season.

Crawley at home next week should be a banker. We'll see.

Liked Flitcroft mentioning the fans and the expense of travel in first month and that the players have to put in a performance to merit that.

First time since PDC a manager says that sort of stuff...

For those that went/streamed it how did we play? Particularly keen to know how Woolery did? & the CM as there were a lot of gaps in CM last week which Exeter exploited on a number of occasions. Dunne, in particular looked knackered last week!!

 Encouraging result.

 All that could be asked... compete, be hard to beat and nick a result at a norvern hell hole. it will be interesting to see how squad depth is approached over the next couple of weeks. I'd imagine Flitters might like to get in another 2 or 3, as he doesn't seem overly fond of the few outfield leftovers aside from Norris and Conroy, and possibly Goddard.

Midfield were combative and held their positions, nothing more than that.  Defence got rid as soon as they had it.  All the forwards put in a good shift but the wind played havoc meaning the ball was spending most of the time in the air bouncing between the teams.  Somehow the BBC has us dominating possession.  Don't let that fool you, the ball was not retained for any periods by either team.  The win was deserved, job well done.  It's a lot more Sturrock than it is Williams.

Although I'll add we have a bit more about us in the final third than under Sturrock I think.

I was very much a L2 game.

I thought Linganzi looked quite classy in flashes, though. And the forwards looked busy.

Cheers Rob. As Reg says I wouldn't be surprised to see another 2 or 3 landed before the window ends. Hopefully Danny Mayor from Bury will be one of them.

Crawley have always been pointless

Let's hope they still are in a week's time!! 

Going by twitter, the players are not happy with their performance today.

I like that.

Happy with two wins and a draw but won't get too carried away until we start playing well. Good to be too though

Yea, we are.

That's why we're going up.

It's not. Williams used to trot it out on a regular basis, as did Cooper. It's just that you like Flitcroft so you believe it coming from him, so it registers.

A friend of a friend got confused buying plane tickets for a Champion's League away game in Bucharest once. He was henceforth known as Budapest Tim.

Pfft, it's clearly just a procession from here until we are rightly crowned Champions in March.

Not before Xmas then Paul - like the mob down the 420?

I was going to go for Feb but thought it only fair to allow for the odd hiccup. If only to allow Reg to try to start a relegation panic

Only 45 more points and Reg can start looking up.

Indeed. All managers speak the same football language and say almost identical things to the press. It's why Di Canio's nonsense and King's verbal diarrhoea stick in the memory.

I think there are many things to improve on, we look well drilled off the ball but there's a long way to go with the ball for me.  McDermott looked to have a good touch and a good degree of creativity, hopefully the fitness follows soon, looked like Linganzi had his best game yet to me.  Mullin again looked like a good acquisition and Norris continues to look a different player.

Think it will just take a few more weeks for them all to understand each other in terms of ball play but it is a very good base to be working from thus far.  Mostly for me there was too much play it long in to channels.  Happy enough at this stage as we will undoubtedly get better and winning, as they say, becomes a habit.

My first game this year, polar opposite of last year's performances.

No nonsense defending for the most part, looked a threat up top and the midfield were combative. Special mentions to the 2 cb who won pretty much everything, Hussey was always an outlet on the left and the front 4 looked very dangerous. Norris was brilliant I thought.

We were all over them in the first 30 until vigs decided he was playing under Williams and had a clearance charged down. That seemed to give them confidence and we struggled a little after that.

Great win, thoroughly looking forward to the rest of the season.

Probably trying to use Woolery's pace to unlock the defence?

Flitcroft got a little "defensive" in the post match interview when questioned about the style of football (even though the interviewer didn't mean it in the way he took it).

I haven't seen us play yet, but couldn't really give a toss what style of football we play this year as long as we get out of this division.  From what I have heard and read the wind played a big part in the performance yesterday, but out of interest, where are we on the Williams > Hoofball scale based on how we are playing at the moment?

It's not particularly pleasing on the eye so far. But neither was watching the nonsense possession losing football last season.

I Know which I prefer

There were some passages of decent play. I think the intention is there, we're just lacking the execution so far.

Point in case. You're spot on. That is league two I guess. If they all click properly (which I think they will) then it'll get better but none of us should expect free flowing pinpoint quality at this level. Just won't get the complete quality throughout the squad. Whatever happened to Medhi Kerrouche? "Kerrouche, Kerrouche, Kerrouche is on fire!" Attitude wise, it's who Kasim reminded me of. Good players but that overtly stubborn attitude was the breaking of them.

There are some comments on the Morecambe forum about us, how we were not that good and there for the taking, that they should have won etc etc....

Well yes we were there for the taking, but you didn't take us, maybe we didn't look THAT good but we still won.

If we can play not that well and still win then I hate to think what we will do to the opposition when we do finally click into place.

Every win is another 3 points away from relegation, isn't that right Reg? ;)

It may not be pretty to watch but if it gets us results then I am all for this new, defensively more solid style of play, make it difficult for teams to break us down and grab a goal or 2 on the break or from set pieces and we will be there or there abouts come the end of the season.

At this early stage of the season, it's just take each game as it comes and look for signs of progress.  So far so good. 

However last season we had 7 points after 4 games lose on Sat v Crawley and that's where we'll be this season... would that set the alarm bells ringing well probably not... 

After 5 games, last season Tails put up a post, backed by many who thought we'd easily be mid table, questioning those who thought the campaign would be a relegation battle.

Further after 10 games, you were confident enough on what was on show to say...


I'll just stick with taking each game as it comes for now... we probably need to see a bit of convincing home form, to regard things as progressing.

For me we look like a side who will hammer some teams 5-0.
We are well structured, organised but no flair, I can also see has getting a 5-0 hammering.

Last two seasons 85-99 points secured promotion.

Think Howard Wilkinson - get it forward quickly, no messing about at the back, but with creativity upfront so when we get in possession the other teams half we can switch.  For this league it's probably very effective, especially when you are doing it on purpose.  Most players at this level just lack composure, which is why it's more of a scramble.  We seem to be doing it on purpose so we are quite effective.  In both away games, I've seen enough to suggest we'd have upped our game if needed, getting in front meant we could be less worried about attacking intent.  Exeter passed through us, very few will try that so coming out of that game with a result was a good effort.  Flitcroft has set us up to be one of the better teams at nonsense football.  I think if we start to get a good run of results we'll open up a little more, using the confidence.  The flip side is that if we aren't getting results it won't bring the crowd along (although the effort may keep them onside I guess).

To be fair I think if we'd kept hold of Furlong and Doughty we may have stayed up...

But you are right, too early to judge. Performances haven't been great, but effective and I think we've already taken on 2 of the better teams and got results. The key, for me, will be towards the end of the year when more injuries / suspensions / lack of fitness start to hit. If we are as fit as Flitcroft said he wanted us to be then this is where we can and probably will take teams to the cleaners.

But as others have said, we look like we could quite comfortably take a pasting on a bad day. But I think it'll be rare. We've had to show some fight already this season and it's gone our way. I don't think top 7 is out of our range by any means.

Think we'll have a much better idea, although not yet the full picture after, the next 4 games. 2 home and then 2 away. 

If we are to make the CG a fortress then, we'll need to see a start v Crawley and Barnet. Then if we are to get a pasting, Luton away would seem a very good candidate, followed by mid week by Notts County who seem a bit better then of late

The wind did play a big part in the game - it was so bad that one of our tents didn't survive Friday night !!  :eek:

It was the first time I'd seen the new look team of this season (missed the 2 home games as was camping 'oop Norf').
Totally different from last season, a good battling gritty performance !

The way we're set up with 2 defensive midfielders means we're going to be very difficult to beat -both Linganzi and Dunne put in great battling performances. But at a cost maybe, as we had very little creativity (only McDermott) and resorted to lots of long balls down the wings that weren't very successful due to the wind !

I was very impressed with Mullin, he never stopped running and was a continual thorn in their side. Norris looked really up for it and looks a much changed player from last season, just needs to get a few goals. Woolery didn't stand out and I didn't see much of his alleged dazzling pace, but to be fair the long balls punted up to him were of very poor quality ! Lancashire was a rock at the back and had a very solid game but the one player that failed to impress was Purkiss who looked a bit shaky and let his man get past him too often altho he did help in the build up to the goal !

All in all, a very steady, hard working combatative performance but a bit dull to watch - but the 3 points was the main thing  ;D

I think we're going to like Mullin. He looks like a right nuisance.

Been away on holiday... so 3 games in and top of the league how do people think we are actually going to do?

We should win the league and win it comfortably, anything less would be failure.  One hell of a lot of dross and garbage and we are slightly better.


Having said that in League 1 next season, we'd need to change quite a few.

Yeah he's already becoming a bit of a cult hero. Plus he's found the net a few times early days which always bodes well

I think the aim is promotion, yes we have a large budget for this league but so do Coventry, Luton, Mansfield and FGR, all probably higher than our budget.

To win the league will take a few more signings and some good team spirit but it is doable, I wouldn't consider getting into the play offs as being a failure but we should aim higher.

As for next season if/when we do go up then it will be almost a whole new squad I am sure as Flickers likes horses for courses, almost all the players he has signed so far have been there and done it in this league and know what is expected and fitness and motivation levels needed.

That will be different in a higher league and I am sure we would see wholesale changes if we do go up.

We'll grind out results. Probably won't win many games by more than the odd goal. The football won't be pretty and all the teams we play (...and beat) won't rate us and won't be able to understand why we're going so well.

We will do that all season and get promoted

Pretty much what Bolton did last year in League One

Yep, I can well imagine being the fan of an opposing team scratching my head at how this opposing team is doing so well, even now I reckon all three teams we've played are looking at the league wondering how on earth we've come out on top after 3 games.  We certainly don't have to worry about the pitches getting cut up in the winter this season!

I've read this a few times and whilst I realise of course that they have an uber rich vegan owner I've yet to see any actual evidence of this.* They didn't make many signings in the summer and certainly none of note whilst we all know that Woolery came to us instead of them... :hmmm:



Edit: *meaning of course, I have yet to see any evidence of them having a bigger budget than us - not of having an uber rich vegan owner  ;)

Yeah thats true, he hasn't put his money where his mouth is when it comes to transfer fees...yet...but I am sure wages wise they will compete with us even if they survive on 2,000ish crowds much as Crawley did.

That's a tad Daily Mailesque isn't it! 'rich vegan owner'. You've missed his sexual preference and value of his house. Shame on you.

Forest Green have incurred substantial annual losses since Vince's involvement.  Last 3 years have seen losses of c.£2.5 million, £2.5m and £3m.  Widely reported to have had the biggest budget in the Conference last year.

They should fade after 70 or so minutes I'd have thought.

You can't run for 90 on nut cutlets and vegetarian bacon

In the highlights I saw from the weekend, Reece Brown looked decent...  first time I had heard of him.

I know that highlights can be decieving though.

Their budget was (reported) to be higher than some clubs in L1 and a lot in L2 as well.

I am sure in an interview with Cooper when he joined FGR he said his budget there was similar to the Swindon playing budget when he left us.