Swindon Town FC vs Hereford United FC Official Matchday Thread

[Talk Talk]

Greer was immense. Jack Smith had a very good game playing on the wrong side. Paynter was busy as always. Cox's back heel was my moment of the season because it was allowed    Morrison is a far better alternative to Tescos (with credit to Gary Stanley for that one).

Ace day, sat on the Bank drinking Hobgoblin in the sunshine after we put the flags up.

[flammableBen]

I think we seemed better going forward today compared to Tuesday. Things seemed to click better between Cox/Paynter, Kanu/Macca, and the full backs/midfielders (depending on where and who was pushing forward). There seemed to be more playing about and drawing defenders away, instead of purely relying on the wingers running down and putting in a hopeful cross. Their defence couldn't cope with the trio of macca/cox/kanu, but I reckon that was partly because we mixed it up a bit more, with some tidy balls coming through the middle.

We looked good on the break in the second half, none of the players seemed scared to play speculative through balls to our quicker players, I think most had an attempt at an assist at some point.

P.Smith had more scares than he did Tuesday, although to be honest, if I had to pick one to stick with for next season I'd probably go with Smith over Brez. Even though they're nearly exactly the same age, I see more potential improvement in Smith, potential improvement whilst playing for Swindon that is - I'm not sure why, but I can see us getting more out of Smith than Brez. Doesn't mean much, I'm not exactly a renowned keeper scout.

Although Hereford never really looked like getting back in the game, they did have some dangerous attacks - even if they weren't clear cut chances. Mainly through our lack of organisation. On the whole I think we defended pretty well through out, especially as we didn't try to just cut the game out, not as much as we did on Tuesday... more on that in a bit I think.

It's a version of a much repeated TEF ditty to say that if the defenders were mistake-proof then they might not be playing at our level. I don't think it's the initial mistakes which are the most harmful, it's that after one is made it seems to take us far too long to get reorganised. There were a couple of occasions today when the original error wasn't as much as a problem as us failing to recover, once one thing goes wrong they all seem to get lost.

On the whole though I thought we were pretty good at not only breaking down their attacks but actually doing something with the ball when we got it back. I think it's this which made today seem like a better performance than Tuesday, there weren't any long periods where it didn't look like could turn play into an attack at any time.

Cox is ace. From what I've seen of him he's way better than Parkin. He misses more 'striker finishes', but he creates more than a hell of a lot more to make up for it. Cox is a much more modern forward in that he plays like a scoring midfielder, I think it's amazing he's scored so many as you'd sort of feel it would be harder to play that role in a struggling team. He wouldn't look out of place in a 4-6-0 formation, which seems to be the way that modern top level tactics seem to be going. He's a mix of Scholes and Henry. So yeah. I think that Parkin's clear cut finishing is better, but apart from that Cox is better at everything.

Oh and I don't know if anybody else has commented, but I though Paynter was good today. I feel a bit bad for him, he's never going to come across as a sexy exciting flair player when compared to an on form CoMaKanu trio. His [getting in the way of their defence : getting in the way of our attack] ratio was very good today. He did a great job and was getting in some good positions. I think that one of the main things is, that although he's not always the best at escaping his man, he doesn't often leave his man with nothing to do. I don't think we would have looked as good today with another CoMaKanu player in the attacks, I guess I'm saying that Paynter did an awesome job in my eyes.

Saying that (and partially disagreeing with myself)... I would have liked to have seen Sturrock come on for Paynter in the last 15-20mins. I've always like Sturrock when I see him play, he'll never be  a great goal scorer, but I'd like to have seen his clever channel runs in overlapping, defender drawing, offside beating combination with the other 3 attacking players (not saying CoMaKanu again - it's a bit fatbury inventing words ish.). It's all immaterial now, so we'll never know, there's a good chance that I'm inventing bollocks in my head.

[suttonred]

Reads like you've got your mojo back for football then?

[DiV]

you should talk about football more often ben!

[flammableBen]

you should talk about football more often ben!

Is that the DV seal of approval on my matchday comment? I'm honoured. Honestly not being sarcy there either.

I've really enjoyed the little 3 home games on a trot I've been to, first time I've honestly enjoyed football and not wondered why I wasn't doing something else, such as stayed in the pub, for quite a few years. I think it's because game to game there's been a nice progression of improvements in certain areas. I guess I'm lucky that it seems to have coincided with some progress at home. Let's hope it's not some sort of false dawn, the improvement can be quickly undone if our nasty night-time soul eating creatures turn out not to be dead, but just waiting to take us by surprise for full effect on breaking our spirits.

[Talk Talk]

Is that the DV seal of approval on my matchday comment?

DV doesn't do seals of approval. It's either ok or a load of old shite.

I think it is better than ok Ben. I think you should oust Dan the Fan and get on the Adver with stuff like this. Or even better, get on Beeb Swindon with Ed as match analyst.

That would really piss DV off. 

[flammableBen]

DV doesn't do seals of approval. It's either ok or a load of old shite.

I think it is better than ok Ben. I think you should oust Dan the Fan and get on the Adver with stuff like this. Or even better, get on Beeb Swindon with Ed as match analyst.

That would really piss DV off. 

Cheers Mr.H.

I'm going to read back through this thread to see if I disagreed with anybody.

[Iffy's Onion Bhaji]

It mirrored the Southend game really. First 10 to 20 minutes we were a bit nervy and perhaps a bit scared to play. After that we settled down and then caused them some real problems upfront. We could have been 3 nil up at half time with the chances we had really. Funniest bit in the first half (I'm saying that because the Lino in the second half for the second goal was funnier) was 2 people behind me moaning about us taking a short corner and then Macca whips in a beauty for Cox to open the scoring. They soon shut up. We had our flappy moments at the back for a 5-10 minute period at the end of the half but luckily for once they didn't cost us.

Second half was very good. We looked like scoring every time we went forward. That decision for the second goal is probably the worst i've seen a linesman make. Even our players didn't really celebrate. It did even out because Robson-Kanu had a fair goal that wasn't given. I think the lino knew what he was doing there. Hereford huffed and puffed but we defended well. On the whole very good. Greer and Morrison really are starting to look good. OTJ and Timmy are gelling quite well too. Shame OTJ has to go on international duty soon.

So all in all a great week for us. 6 goals, 6 points and 2 clean sheets. Didn't expect that. The real test is next week though and we'll see if we can take our good recent home form on the road with us.

[Luci]

Correct.

And we made the play-offs that season so that tells you how good we are now under DW.

Anyone who had Cox at 40-1 e/w to be top scorer is very excited now I'd warrant.

Got him at 50/1

Does anyone know if each way is top 3 or top 4?

[tans]

top 4 i think.

how much do you stand to win?

[mexico red]

it is top 4, looking good

[Matchworn Shirts]

Shame OTJ has to go on international duty soon.

And I bet the sod will score against us next Wednesday

[Luci]

top 4 i think.

how much do you stand to win?

Well I put a tenner each way (£20 total) so think if he finishes top its about 600 quid ish but anything in the top 4 will do.

Wish I had a bit separately for him to finish outright top now!

[michael]

Just reading that yesterday's referee was the infamous Stuart Atwell.

Though to be fair to him he has been stitched up by his linesman again.

BBC reckons we had 3 players offside! They also quote 1-0 as the final score so...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_div_2/7937326.stm

[Luci]

That is truly shocking coverage - Im tempted to write and complain..