Thetownend.com

Showed again today that he is our best central defender.

Pure class at times.

Not his fault that the rest are donkeys.

Pardon me, I meant yesterday.

Didn't realise the time.

He started the season pure shite. Last month or so though he has been really good. Fair play to him

the whole defence looked better the again carlisle wre never any threat i mean you would have had to  punch the ball to a  unmarked player in the last minute for them to score....whoops

Was it like against the Posh when the whole team sat too deep after scoring? I think that ultimately led to our lost point against them, sounds likek it may have happened yesterday.

 This was because Carlisle have just about the worst away record in the league, and just don't score many goals....that we conceded against them shows our problem fro the rest of the season.

Yeah, he has played very well the last few games but once he called our fans wankers (they are) so he should be taken out back and shot and called possible the worst insult of all time 'aljokefree'

Fuck off dv as i said elsewhere our fans are no worse than others. Suppose the boo's yesterday are why we drew

Anyone would look good against a crap team like Carlisle.
Except Swindon that is.
:(

I never said our fans were worse than other fans. I just said our fans are wankers and they are.

Aljofree was fantastic yesterday. People sitting next to me in the DR Stand still slated him though.

Ifil on the other hand, pissed me off even more than normal with his shite distribution. A professional footballer should be able to pass it on the floor. He gave possession straight back to Carlisle time and time again.

Explain why dv ?

well I called our fans wankers as its the term for people who wank.

Are you now going to tell me our fans dont wank?

The booing of players, the shouting abuse at players, the whole negativity around everyone and everything, the knee jerk re-action, the leaving early, the sitting quietly, the lack of support.

It all adds up. I dont expect everyone to be a super happy happy clapper but fuck me, I expect the Swindon fans to support to the team.

At the moment our fans almost seem on edge waiting for a mistake just so they can moan about it, look at yesterday. Text messages, posts, people in the crowd all going on about how rubbish Phil Smith was and he cost us the game, did he fuck....

I dont want to sound like Reg but I remember when the County Ground would be a noisey place full of support. We went 1-0 down and it spurred us on to chant longer and louder. Christ you've been to the CG before this season so I'm sure you know exactly what I mean.

I dont enjoy going anymore for a number of reasons, it feels more like a chore than a hobby.  I think if I hadnt of already paid for my season ticket I'd have given up by now.

Maybe the new manager will change things but I cant see anything other than a new manager coming in, the fans not happy enough with the appointment. They dont really take to him but give him the rest of this season because its a write off. He'll bring in his own players in the summer. We'll start next season have a few poor results and after 10 games people will be calling for the managers head. We'll battle on for a few games, he'll get sacked about 15 games in and when we're out all the cups and we'll be back to square one. Repeat untill we get a manager who wins his first 10 games on the season and he might just last into the new year.

I cant help but think the take over has unrealistically raised alot of fans expectations levels.

take over = money = new players = winning = promotion.

So many of our 'new' season ticket holders this season wont be back because we are winning games and are near the top, like they were expecting.

Im babbling now but I hate football right now. Everything about it.

Thats fair enough dv. I personally think the players have been fucking awful this year. If a fan wants to leave early thats his choice. If he wants to text in saying it was a shit performance so be it. Doesn't make them wankers. As for expectations yet again the players all said playoffs and last week byrne said top 10 by christmas

Some players have been awful in some games, im not claiming overwise but we havent exactly been piss poor every week.

Paynter, in my opinion has had two poor games this season. Peterbrough and Carlisle (note I havent seen every game this season) in the others he has played well, put his shift in and linked up well with Cox. I also believe without Paynter Cox wouldnt have as many goals. Yet you've got people on another thread claiming hes a cart horse. I know I should respect other peoples opinion no matter how stupid I think they are. Trevor fucking Benjamin was a cart horse not Billy Paynter.

I dont mind negative texts coming into the radio, if they at least make sense or have a point. Not a text for the sake, again the example is yesterday there must have been close to 10 texts moaning at Byrne for costing us the game but needlessly changing the defence with 10 minutes ago. Anyone with half a brain cell knows that isnt true!

I can see why people can be taken in by what the players say re: play offs but I base my expectations on what i've seen from the team not was some player said in the paper.

...also the leaving early, I've never understood it why do it?

I agree with you Deev, but I'm almost ashamed to admit I've left early a few times this year. I just couldn't bear to watch any longer it was that shit. But that's the manager + team all together. I don't walk out because Jack Smith has been skinned too many times or Cox has missed from a few yards out.

I'm too much of a masochist to leave early......

Fans support their team in different ways. Unless we want to adopt a 1984 philosophy then its always going to be that way - for us and for every other team regardless of level.
The age old answer has always been to put a good shift in and win games - end of.

I leave my seat half way through stoppage time and stand at the bottom of the steps and watch the rest of the game. It takes ages to get out of the stadium from my seat in the back-middle of the intel stand

Sorry Dv but Smith did make a massive contribution to us losing the game in my opinion.That cross was definitely catchable.Everything else you say I agree with.

I'm not quite sure if I'm quoting the right bit. But I wanted to get involved in the fan debate thingy between DV and DRS.

The one thing which has struck me, and I'm not sure if it's because I rely on people's internet opinions more now, or even if it's because I was reading less internet opinion's then.

Bobby Howe was pretty shit. And he used to get ribbed for it. But I don't remember the town fans getting on his back like they have with some of our current players. Yeah we used to rib into him with the sexy football chants, and yes people would shout at him when he was on the pitch. Yet it always seemed a lot more good natured than you get with some of the current players.

Maybe it's a reverse psyche thing, I used to skim over people opinions on the internet back in the Bobby Howe era, and now it's all I get to hear about any player. But too me everybody seems a lot more hateful, more so than I've ever experienced as a Town fan.

I think the hate doesn't come from truly thinking a particular player is to blame, but is born out of the frustration for the team as a whole. In essence, I'm saying people probably don't realise how daft blaming one or two players is when in fact there are often 9 or 10 players on the pitch who did fuck all, but their anger over the team performance makes them go a bit STFC Bart.

I think its due to underachievment.  In the Bobby Howe days we had serious financial troubles leading to anyone who was any good being sold.  Our squad was terrible, and the fans knew it. There was a crushing inevitability about it all. Some of our players who were getting regular games were utterly shit and way out of their depth.

Contrast to now, we have a decent but not brilliant squad of players. Most have proven themselves to be at least adequate players for this level, and obviously we have a couple of players with the potential to go higher. Despite this, at times this season they have been dire.The 1st team squad is not being managed on a week by week basis as another 1st team player gets sold like the Howe era.

The fans have seen the same players put in sporadic excellent performances, so we have seen what they are capable of.  When they dont get anywhere near this level it makes people very very angry.

This is spot on

Agreed to a point...last year i thaught a good striker would be enough for this squad to be near enough for at least a playoff spot..weve got the striker but alas i was wrong about the squad...some are good enough players but they havnt the mental toughness when needed.....and thats why they are at Swindon...not knocking individual players but in essence we havnt had a captain leading the team this year,i cant see any leadership on the pitch at all and while MM was in charge none off it either.

No, that's why Swindon are 1 point off relegation. Just need a manager who won't be so acceptant of that fact and give them some belief.

Probably why I hate the "that's why they are at Swindon" line, because it's saying we'll never be better than we already are. Same as the inconsistent player theory. If you had a player who's skills were only good enough for League One, but he performed to the highest of his abilities every week, he'd be quality in League One, but struggle further up the league.

Give them some belief!....they have a striker scoring for fun,have been given good runs...as i pointed out these players have played under lots of managers....you saying none of them has given them belief.....the majority are crap Sie...it hurts me to say it but its true,a good new manager will see it as the truth and get rid....to me this team are uncapable of winning matches that are there for the taking.......everyone in the ground was expecting Carlisle to score near the end,we were all just waiting for it to happen like all the previous matches.....and the players were as well.

I wasn't trying to single you out leefer, but now you're contradicting yourself. What's a fresh team of players going to be like, because if they're at Swindon they won't have any mental toughness? Think that was the point of my post chap.

Incidentally, we seemed to be able to win matches under previous managers, with mostly the same players. We don't have a good enough sqaud for play offs or promotion, but we're better than what we're achieving right now.

But we haven't improved the squad. In fact I'd say Roberts, Zaboub and Comminges were better than what we have seen of Casal, Amankwha and Marshall. That is a factor.

But mostly it's confidence. We sit back in the last 10 minutes a bit because we are nervous of conceeding, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

How you get confidence back - IMHO partly that does come from the management team (not just the main man). But equally we need a couple of lucky wins to get us on a roll.

As Si Pie says, our squad is underperforming. But it wouldn't be the first on in history that should be too good for relagation to go down.

same as Spurs. No new players just a change of manager. and now look at how they play. with more belief and a never say die attitude (against Arsenal).

See your point...what i meant was players like Mcmanee,JPM,Paynter...all good players and probably shouldnt be in LGE 1...IMO they are good players and for some reason are with us,i dont mean that to knock Swindon.Other managers have given them chances and i feel alot of our squad have had enough time and chances,i really hope the new manager is given resources to totally change the squad and in that respect i feel a little sorry for MM because he didnt have that chance fully.

he had all summer to bring in players. Cox and Timlin were done deals before the summer but he could have done more yet he didn't. Not even a single loan signing.

There is far more venom around these days, that much is true.  I think the final 18 months of the Diamandis reign has turned a lot of people sour, from both sides, which has brought about a negative state of mind.  The fact that when the new guys in we didn't miraculously turn into a top 8 team just made things worse.  Only 3 years ago we were on our way down to the bottom League with the chance of going bankrupt.  It's not really that implausible for us to still be a struggling team, we were lucky we had such a good start under Wise otherwise there is every chance we'd still be battling away in the bottom flight, look at Oxford.

It's going to take a while to recover from the years of pain this club was caused.  We've got some very inconsistent players, which adds to the problem because everyone remembers seeing one of their really good games and thinks why can't they be like that more often.  Ifil being a good one.  He's been up an down ever since he came, problem is he does it in long stints so people think he's a star and then her turns back into a pantomine villian - his performance on Sat was laughable but people had been clammering for his return.

Yes we are doing worse than our team collectively should be right now, but lets give the club the opportunity to get the RIGHT man in and give them time to work on the team to see some improvement.  This squad, as it stands, will not be in with a shout of the play offs, even if the season started again now.

My thoughts exactly Rob

YES!!!! AT LAST!!!!!!

I have found someone else in Swindon who agrees with me. I often wonder why this man is so loved by town fans.

 :date:

No idea, parked in the cricket ground maybe - that takes years to get out of. Even when we losing heavily I stay just in case we see a wonder goal (from either team).  People leaving happens at every ground in the country though. Our fans are no different.

What is worse is the few that boo'd  at half time. Not sure why they did. The ref wasn't that shit in the first half. The performance was lacking but presumably these people expect us to be steamrollering Carlisle and 0-0 isn't acceptable. If we were losing I could understand it, hell I have even done it.

This thread was meant to be about Hasney, interesting comment in the Adver from Callum Kennedy - Hasney talked him through the game!!  There are still people out there who will claim that he doesn't talk to the players around him!

Has-been Aljofree