Swindon Town v Stockport County matchday thread

[Pericardinho]

It's pretty well publicised that Crewe operate on one of the lowest budgets in the division.

[UTR]

Regarding Flynn’s post match interview yesterday, I agree with what he says but I’m concerned about a couple of things.

1. He had a whole pre season (and a few weeks before) to work out that these players left over from last season continue to make the same defensive mistakes over and over again, you’d only need to watch brief highlight tapes of our matches last season to see that. It’s not a case of Flynn’s come in late and has to work with someone else’s squad, he had a whole summer to change personnel, you can see our better players are mostly those recruited over the summer, the remnants of last seasons squad have definitely improved but continue to make the same mistakes defensively and in some cases (FBT and Khan) are being asked to do roles that they shouldn’t be. Khan isn’t a DM, he’s combative but needs a DM alongside him.

2. Where’s the money coming from to make these squad changes in January. It’s not like the summer window when there’s a raft of free agents becoming available, the January window is notorious for being an expensive time to do business. Considering we’re struggling to budget for a couple free agents now, you can’t help but be sceptical at where this budget for Janaury changes will come from. Young/Kemp replacements won’t be cheap and those 2 if recalled will only generate us a small loan recall fee so where’s the budget to replace those two quality wise going to come from let alone extra transfers on top. Maybe Clem will come into January and magically inject the cash but I doubt it, can’t see much more than us recycling our loan spots in January.

[Bennett]

Clem's coming back to oversee matters. All will be well

[Mooneyraker]

What I can’t quite get over is the fact that Flynn is just persisting with the same set up over and over. He simply has no plan B.

Maybe we should be packing the midfield, who knows, but try something. Players are capable of playing out of position. Look at when Alan McCormack went to CB and played like prime Beckenbauer.

He needs to try something because it is suicidal at the moment and digging the players out is a terrible look.

[Wobbly Bob]

Clem's coming back to oversee matters. All will be well

Overview, it's overview and he's not due in until late evening on 1st Feb.

[digby]

I'm not really sure what he can say to be truthful but that was an absolutely "nothing" interview with Flynn. It's almost as if what happened on the pitch was nothing to do with him.  Losing faith with him I'm afraid. Still not sure why he signed Kinsella when he didn't fancy him at Walsall.
 

Agree with you about the interview - he was heaping it all on the players, while distancing himself from all of the problems. I'm disappointed he resorted to this, as it's a poor character trait, I thought he was above that - perhaps it's a sign of how desperate he's getting !

Yesterday, in the main, the players put in a decent performance and almost matched a team top of the league. However, it's very apparent that we gave them too much space in front of our box, as demonstrated by their last two goals - our midfield did not get back to help out the defence. Although some of the players were at fault, it's something that could be addressed by a tweak of tactics, and that is definitely Flynn's responsibility.

It's obvious to most on here that we need a defensive midfielder to sit in front of and protect the back three. I know in an ideal world, we would've signed such a player, and may well do in January. However it's obvious we need to change things now, and that is very much Flynn's job. Surely 'converting' someone for that role is the short term fix. Why not put Dokes into that role.  He has the physicality and energy to do it, and at least when he goes on one of his surging runs forward there'll be a centre back still there to plug the gaping hole. Clayton would have been the ideal one to replace him in the back three, but I feel Minturn is capable of filling the role, particularly with Dokes providing extra protection.

Why oh why doesn't Flynn try something like this, or at least another change to the tactics, because surely it's obvious if you keep doing the same thing - you'll get the same result !!   

[UTR]

Also sidenote, the atmosphere after we went 2-1 up was the loudest it’s been for a while. Shame that doesn’t get whipped up more often

[Jimmy HaveHave]

Still lots to play for if the right signings and tactical changes are made. Fancied Gillingham have lost two more games than us, joint second highest scorers in the league one behind the leaders and still only four points off the play offs.

Clem it’s over to you

[JoeMezz]

Still lots to play for if the right signings and tactical changes are made. Fancied Gillingham have lost two more games than us, joint second highest scorers in the league one behind the leaders and still only four points off the play offs.

Clem it’s over to you

Any chance of anything coming of our season is if we can sign a centre back or holding midfielder now. Even if it’s until January and we replace with better quality then, it has to be filled now.

[ChalkyWhiteIsGod]

Maybe a 4231

Dokes
Brewitt
FBT
Kokolo

Kinsella / McEachran
Khan

Hutton
Kemp
RHM / Shade

Young

Yeah that seems more workable right now.

Carrying on doing the same thing is the definition of madness.

[ChalkyWhiteIsGod]

Overview, it's overview and he's not due in until late evening on 1st Feb.

Fax machine will work in a few sales and then mysteriously break before the deadline on the replacements again, I suspect.

[Jimmy HaveHave]

Any chance of anything coming of our season is if we can sign a centre back or holding midfielder now. Even if it’s until January and we replace with better quality then, it has to be filled now.

The problem is Flynn isn’t seeing what we’re seeing!

[ChalkyWhiteIsGod]

What I can’t quite get over is the fact that Flynn is just persisting with the same set up over and over. He simply has no plan B.

Maybe we should be packing the midfield, who knows, but try something. Players are capable of playing out of position. Look at when Alan McCormack went to CB and played like prime Beckenbauer.

He needs to try something because it is suicidal at the moment and digging the players out is a terrible look.

The more I think about it 4-2-3-1 should probably be plan A and 3-5-2 plan B.

[Jimmy HaveHave]

A 4-4-2 or 4-5-1 if we are winning with 10 minutes to go!

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

Someone remind me. We were linked to various CBs in pre season - Demetriou, Farquarson, that bloke who decided to go back to FGR, the fella who went to India, probably 1 or 2 more.

Would any of them be expected to play as UGM and FBT are now playing? UGM wasn’t a CB at FGR. FBT wasn’t a CB until forced into it here by necessity.

So was Flynn trying to recruit for a different system than we are now actually playing?