Swindon Town v Burton matchday thread

[OrangeTransits]

What happened? Saw nothing in the DRS, but walking along Shrivvy Road, there was some bloke shouting at the top of his voice at a couple of stewards who seemed to be trying to stop him from going any further. Which is odd, because unless they were performing a citizen's arrest, they don't have any legal right to stop an individual walking down the road. The bloke was proper agitated, but couldn't tell what it was all about. Same incident?

Was he a refugee !!!!

[pauld]

Was he a refugee !!!!

Strangely I didn't go over to the shouting bloke confronting two stewards in the road outside the ground and demand to see his papers. How slack of me. However, from his accent, I'd assumed he was local-ish.

[stfc1975]

Terrible game made even worse by the biggest cunt in the world sat behind me. 

Bring on next week 

[THE FLASH]

Just woke up....can't sleep.

Dreadful.... Not the worst under Chuckles though...that was Blades away seasons back.

I can take defeat but not in that manner.

Burton drilled and organised and we gift them a goal early doors and end up fucked... After they scored, they didn't want to know and happy to spoil and hit on the break, an excellent away display.
We had no idea to get through them.

TBH I can take us being a bit shit in the first half but not the second, that was unforgivable. Just same again with a bit more panic. Never made a fist of it at all.

Needs to improve or the part timers and blue mooners will not be showing up.

On to next week...

[Skinny Pete]

Terrible game made even worse by the biggest cunt in the world sat behind me.  

No I wasn't

Anyway, it's back to 3-5-2 for me. At the moment we have the worst of 2 worlds with 4 at the back - still crap defending but with the additional crapness of no goal threat up top.

Cooper has to stop devising a system that accommodates all the players he wants on the pitch and grow a pair and pick a functioning team.

[OOH! SHAUN TAYLOR]

A couple of observations on our current 'predicament' for want of a better word. I will qualify what I am about to say by pointing out that I have only observed us live and in the flesh for 90 minutes plus stoppage time this season so stand to be corrected by anyone who is seen a lot more than I have. Anyway...


1)Cooper appears to be 'shoehorning' certain players (most notably Jordan Williams) into the lineup at the expense of the effectiveness and shape of the team as a whole. I'm not criticizing Williams as such, I think he's a decent CB. However, I am sure most people would agree that Jordan Turnbull is a centre half, not a left back. We would surely be much better off with him at CB and Brophy (or BOO if/when he is finally fit) at LB.

It looks to me as if he is having to play Williams as part of his loan agreement, further evidence of that being when he played him in midfield at the start of the season. The bloke doesn't even look like a midfielder, he's a CB - and a decent one at that (he may not have looked it yesterday). If playing him is affecting the overall effectiveness of the team though, you have to send him back to Liverpool. I don't know for a fact that we are having to play him of course but Cooper's comments yesterday would suggest that we are.


2)Fabien Robert to me is a very clever, inventive, attack minded midfield player who I have been very impressed with this season - and for good measure, he scores goals. It sounds like the game was crying out for him yesterday and he should not be on the bench.

I get the feeling that Cooper is not at his most effective when he has 'too many' players to choose from (although being forced to play certain players does not help and of course is not his fault). We saw this last season when, prior to the Asia Cup the midfield 3 of Luongo, Kasim and L Thompson picked itself, was arguably the best in L1 and was the keystone of our success in the first half of the season. The lads who then came in while they were away then did rather well and as a result, when Luongo and Kasim came back, Cooper didn't seem to know who to pick and what formation to play them in. Performances dropped off as a result.

There is obviously a hell of a long way to go yet and no team in L1 has really stood out yet but there is a hell of lot of work to be done before we start to lose too much ground to the teams at the top.

[Bennett]

I thought Turnball looked ok at leftback. When the ball worked its way out to him he'd at least try to get the ball into space instead of just back to the keeper.

Midfield was too slow to move the ball, the wide players too eager to run to stand next to their fullback.

[@mwooly63]

What happened? Saw nothing in the DRS, but walking along Shrivvy Road, there was some bloke shouting at the top of his voice at a couple of stewards who seemed to be trying to stop him from going any further. Which is odd, because unless they were performing a citizen's arrest, they don't have any legal right to stop an individual walking down the road. The bloke was proper agitated, but couldn't tell what it was all about. Same incident?

Same bloke that was involved

[ronnie21]

What happened? Saw nothing in the DRS, but walking along Shrivvy Road, there was some bloke shouting at the top of his voice at a couple of stewards who seemed to be trying to stop him from going any further. Which is odd, because unless they were performing a citizen's arrest, they don't have any legal right to stop an individual walking down the road. The bloke was proper agitated, but couldn't tell what it was all about. Same incident?

There was a tiny bit seen on the steps going down to the exit.  Older supporter was stood clapping the team (who didn't bother clapping the supporters!) and a young guy walked up to him and had a bit of a go at him, something like "what the fuck are you clapping that pile of shit for" in a very aggressive manner, there was a bit of an argument but I thought they both just drifted away!

[herthab]

Desperately looking for positives in what was a dismal performance. Once Louis has had a few games under his belt I think we'll really benefit having him in midfield; it was obvious yesterday that he wasn't 100%, but you did see glimpses. The same can be said of Ojaama, he struggled in the first 45, gradually grew into the game 2nd half and, for me, is going to become an exiting player for us.
And.... That's it.

Negatives: Nathan isn't fit and struggled. Turnball isn't a LB and struggled. Rodgers looks keen, runs around a lot, but doesn't seem to know what part he plays in the midfield. Ajose shouldn't be played out wide. Thomas got little service and struggled.

The game (When we had the ball) was played at walking pace. I like our style of play under Cooper. I like intricate passing and keeping possession. What I don't like is a tempo so slow we never open the opposition up and give them all the time in the world to get behind the ball.

Usually I get pissed off with the "Get it forward!!" brigade. Yesterday I was tempted to join in.

[Sippo]

People say Ajose needs to play upfront, but Cooper doesn't like that does he?

So do we have no wingers and play Ojaama at the top of a diamond?

[FormerlyPlymRed]

People say Ajose needs to play upfront, but Cooper doesn't like that does he?

So do we have no wingers and play Ojaama at the top of a diamond?

Thats what we did at barnsley when Ojaama came on as a sub, we  did create a fair few chances but were wasteful. With that formation though we need the full backs to give us the width and BOO/brophy/Barry would be a lot better at that than turnbull who should be playing at CB.

Kasim
Louis robert
Ojaama would be my diamond midfield if cooper went with that formation.

[BruceChatwin]

I agree with Audrey about needing to find the most balanced team, not the one that accommodates all the best individuals.

I read an interesting article on a German website the other day, about how in England we obsess too much over individual players, and don't focus enough on tactical/ structural issues the same way they do on the continent.

This was used to explain why the English club and national teams were performing so poorly in Europe. A bit of an overgeneralisation perhaps, but I think there's some truth in it. England's 'Golden Generation' are a good example, when we had much better individuals, and the Germans a far superior team.

Post-Barnsley, Cooper focused too much on individual errors, when it was clear the problems ran a lot deeper.

In respect of yesterday's game, I don't think dropping Williams and playing Turnball at CB would have made any difference to the overall performance. The shape of the team was wrong, the intensity was too low, the midfield were not taking enough responsibility for launching attacks/ driving the play forward, Thomas was completely isolated up front, and movement off the ball was lacking.

In many ways, his job has been made much harder by all the new signings, as he's having to integrate them all without the benefit of a pre-season, accommodate (allegedly) loanees in the first team while keeping permanent signings happy, and manage a huge rise in fan expectations.

Performance wise, this has certainly been our poorest start to a season under him. He does need to find a way to start delivering soon, but he also needs to be given time by the fans.

[kaufman]

Thats what we did at barnsley when Ojaama came on as a sub, we  did create a fair few chances but were wasteful. With that formation though we need the full backs to give us the width and BOO/brophy/Barry would be a lot better at that than turnbull who should be playing at CB.

Kasim
Louis robert
Ojaama would be my diamond midfield if cooper went with that formation.

Yep, I said to someone on twitter. Kasim, Rodgers, Traore...Pick one of them and the rest of the midfield will sort itself out. All 3 try to dictate the play and it slows everything down.

[michael]

The obvious positive to take from the game is that we are not in any danger of peaking too soon for the Oxford game B-)