Swindon Town v Newport County - Matchday Thread

[Bennett]

We appear to have decided to play long from minute 1, which didn't work.
Did Smith touch the ball in their penalty area?
I felt sorry for Iandolo being dragged off (Taylor and Dunne were playing the exact same position in the first half)

[theakston2k]

Equally, not impressed with a manager conducting that business in public. Looks like he's more keen on establishing his own side of the story than getting a
 good player back in the team. "Team more important than ego" applies to the manager as well, in fact all the more so.


true, but he's between a rock and a hard place on this. say nothing and people speculate.

sadly think it's increasingly unlikely we'll see him again. and that's a shame as he's clearly our best keeper.

Problem is he hung Vigouroux out to dry the moment the ban happened, he was overly critical of him in the press so can only imagine it was the same behind the scenes.  Seeing the way Flitcroft is on the sidelines towards the officials I’d have trouble biting my tongue if he took me to task for something similar. It’s piss poor man management on the face of it and is coming across as a shit Di Canio marginalising players that should be playing, it’s a repeat of the Caddis fiasco. I remember reading the player churn at Bury was ridiculously high so hardly surprising if this is the norm for him...

[Reg Smeeton]

 I may be in the minority, but I think Flitters has got the his metier spot on.  He's halted the slide to non league, and we're at least semi competitive in most games. OK that we've lost as many home games in 3 months as we'd lost in the previous 3 seasons in Div 4, doesn't look good, but needs to be seen in light of our current status.

Cup game coming up, which is in itself a novelty.. let's at least avoid a replay either way

[LucienSanchez]

What happens between the two 18-yard boxes is irrelevant at times

The above from Flitcroft concerns me... that rather large part of the game dictates how much pressure you're under and what chances you create.

[Reg Smeeton]

The above from Flitcroft concerns me... that rather large part of the game dictates how much pressure you're under and what chances you create.

Flitters probably knows his football history and Town's role in developing the long ball game...

The long-ball game is a tactical gambit in thrall to ludicrously minute statistical data, so it's with some delicious glee that we can pinpoint its genesis almost to the exact minute. At around 3.53pm on 18 March 1950 – sometime during the half-time interval of the Third Division (South) match between Swindon Town and Bristol Rovers – the accountant and former RAF wing commander Charles Reep whipped out a notepad and pencil from his overcoat, and prepared to begin taking notes. Many, many, many, many notes.

Reep was embarking on the first great statistical analysis of football, and he quickly came to the conclusion that "85% of goals tend to be scored from passing sequences that involved a small number of passes, usually three or less" and that "two-thirds of goals come from balls recovered in the last third of the pitch". Teams should, he argued, adjust their tactics accordingly. There was no point playing possession football; better instead to hoof it upfield and deal with what unfolds there. (A simplification of his theories, but not by much; for "hoof", read "reacher", which is what Reep called "a single pass from the defensive third to the attacking third of the pitch".

Most teams in English football play some sort of long ball game.... however there are degrees of directness.

[Wobbly Bob]

Flitters probably knows his football history and Town's role in developing the long ball game...

The long-ball game is a tactical gambit in thrall to ludicrously minute statistical data, so it's with some delicious glee that we can pinpoint its genesis almost to the exact minute. At around 3.53pm on 18 March 1950 – sometime during the half-time interval of the Third Division (South) match between Swindon Town and Bristol Rovers – the accountant and former RAF wing commander Charles Reep whipped out a notepad and pencil from his overcoat, and prepared to begin taking notes. Many, many, many, many notes.

Reep was embarking on the first great statistical analysis of football, and he quickly came to the conclusion that "85% of goals tend to be scored from passing sequences that involved a small number of passes, usually three or less" and that "two-thirds of goals come from balls recovered in the last third of the pitch". Teams should, he argued, adjust their tactics accordingly. There was no point playing possession football; better instead to hoof it upfield and deal with what unfolds there. (A simplification of his theories, but not by much; for "hoof", read "reacher", which is what Reep called "a single pass from the defensive third to the attacking third of the pitch".

Most teams in English football play some sort of long ball game.... however there are degrees of directness.

Gets a mention here as well.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-analytics-can-teach-us-about-the-beautiful-game/

The overall conclusion (from 2014) appears to be that tiki-taka is the way to go.
Come back Luke all is forgiven. 

If only the rest of his teammates could be on the same wavelength when Dunne moves the hot potato on first time without looking.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

Gets a mention here as well.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-analytics-can-teach-us-about-the-beautiful-game/

The overall conclusion (from 2014) appears to be that tiki-taka is the way to go.
Come back Luke all is forgiven. 

If only the rest of his teammates could be on the same wavelength when Dunne moves the hot potato on first time without looking.

[Ardiles]

If you'd told me that during my early years watching Swindon - when Swindon vs Cambridge was regularly covered by the nationals (yes, honestly) in a kind of Hoddle vs Beck/beautiful game vs long ball/good vs evil way - I would have been gutted.

[pauld]

Flitters probably knows his football history and Town's role in developing the long ball game...

[irrelevant historical meanderings snipped]

Or maybe he just thinks that percentage football is the most effective way to play in Div 4?

[pauld]

The above from Flitcroft concerns me... that rather large part of the game dictates how much pressure you're under and what chances you create.

Whereas Williams' team was the exact opposite, all about possession in the middle, nothing in either box. Shame we have to lurch from one extreme to the other - somewhere between the two approaches lies a decent game of football.

[LucienSanchez]

I completely agree

[Not that Nice If I'm Honest]

Flitters probably knows his football history and Town's role in developing the long ball game...

The long-ball game is a tactical gambit in thrall to ludicrously minute statistical data, so it's with some delicious glee that we can pinpoint its genesis almost to the exact minute. At around 3.53pm on 18 March 1950 – sometime during the half-time interval of the Third Division (South) match between Swindon Town and Bristol Rovers – the accountant and former RAF wing commander Charles Reep whipped out a notepad and pencil from his overcoat, and prepared to begin taking notes. Many, many, many, many notes.

Reep was embarking on the first great statistical analysis of football, and he quickly came to the conclusion that "85% of goals tend to be scored from passing sequences that involved a small number of passes, usually three or less" and that "two-thirds of goals come from balls recovered in the last third of the pitch". Teams should, he argued, adjust their tactics accordingly. There was no point playing possession football; better instead to hoof it upfield and deal with what unfolds there. (A simplification of his theories, but not by much; for "hoof", read "reacher", which is what Reep called "a single pass from the defensive third to the attacking third of the pitch".

Most teams in English football play some sort of long ball game.... however there are degrees of directness.

I'd much rather watch a bit of long ball - done well - than the turgid rubbish you see in italy and spain.
I loved it when England beat Spain in a friendly a few years ago with about 30% possession

[Not that Nice If I'm Honest]

Much as I loved the hoddle/Ardiles "football" era, I also loved the macari "Hoofball"

Macari's team was just very good at playing accurate long balls to players perfectly suited to playing that way.
Macari deserves a lot more credit than he gets, because of "Newcastle-gate"

[johnritsons toupe]

As many of you have already said, we're woeful at home - performance and results-wide.

As fellow old cunts will know, Macari cobbled together a team consisting largely of misfits, bad boys and alco / gambling / sex aholics in the 80's, and was successful. We'll never know exactly how much influence the old brown envelopes had on the motivational aspects of that side, but they were fit and could play football as well as hoof it when needed (Ardilles proved they could play football when he arrived)

Whilst times have changed a bit, at this level it's still possible to put together a side that will compete on fairly low wages. Flitcroft has done OK so far, but has quite a bit more work to do if we're going to get out of the basement at the first time of asking.

I don't like what I'm hearing about the handling of Vigs. Granted, Dicanio used to get his word in first whenever he fell out with players - Caddis, Clarke etc. so there's nothing wrong with Flitcroft doing the same. However, Vigs is worth money in a squad full of distinctly premium average players, and we cant offload him or anyone else until January, so it would be unwise to handle whatever is going on in public. Also, by doing what he's doing, he's unnecessarily increasing the pressure on Charles-Cook and himself because everyone knows Vigs should be playing.

The cliche-ridden post match interviews and northern anecdotes were mildly amusing during the summer, but now the winter is kicking in and the season half-way point is upon us, I'm expecting him to take things a bit more seriously. Also I'm expecting him to do likewise with fan opinions; we all know Taylor is a great asset with his trusty left foot, but his legs can't hack it in the middle (he wouldn't fucking be anywhere near SN1 on a match day if he could) so play him where he's effective.  Tom Smith is young and relatively inexperienced, but is a right handful and has a great engine - whereas Goddard is severely limited. Up top, Harry is a Swindon and District player who's punching above his weight.

Can't be arsed to say more, but I'm as pissed off as everyone else.

The honeymoon is well and truly over for 'Flitters' and 'Fuch' I think.

[Peter Venkman]

Much as I loved the hoddle/Ardiles "football" era, I also loved the macari "Hoofball"

Macari's team was just very good at playing accurate long balls to players perfectly suited to playing that way.
Macari deserves a lot more credit than he gets, because of "Newcastle-gate"

I prefered the Macari teams, they played solid at the back and everyone wanted to play for and with each other and our fitness levels were amazing, we also played a lot of very good football under him too it wasn't all hoofball by any means.

This season when we get the ball down we can play some good football but all too often we tend to hoof it up to Smith or Norris and with respect to them both neither is a proper target man and if we do want to play that way then we need somebody built for it like Akinfenwa, Nouble or Obika (not that I am advocating getting him back as hes burnt his ties).

Smith is far too lightweight and Norris not good enough to play the role.

For me a good target man would be a priority in January, send back Smith to 'Wall and try and get somebody else in instead who is stronger and can hold the ball up.

I think we also need at least 1 or even 2 central midfielders, Elsnik looks good when he is fit but Linganzi is frustrating and Dunne seems lost in a lot of games.

With those 2/3 additions I think we will make the play offs and maybe more as this league is really pretty shit and no teams running away with it, all it takes is another run of 3 or 4 wins and we would be top.