Thetownend.com

Modern techology (aka Virgin) has let me down badly. My stored away facts and figures remain stored away and I am relying on good old fashioned 3G. Branson you are a cunt with a fucking stupid beard.

The facts are this - Walsall are playing well and scoring for fun at this moment in time, but, a shock is in the air. We will thrash them, 1-0. Michael Smith will bag a late late winner sending 331 Town fans home with all 3 points in the bag. Harley/JayMac/Ward (delete as applicable) will still manage to be the scapegoat, regardless of a magnificent victory.

Normal service will resume Saturday.

COYR COYR COYR

Everything points towards a defeat so I'm going for a convincing 3-1 win. Smith x2 and Luongo.

I've got a bad feeling about this 1-2

 COYR COYR COYR

Draw....4:4

I've got a good feeling about this!  2-1 Swindon COYR

Every so often football throws up a ludicrous result....like when we won at Charlton in 99/00, we had something like one win in 18 games...Charlton had won 13 on the spin...they were bound for the Prem, us back to Div 3. Steve Cowe...dribbles a weak shot which may or not have been considered "on target", and Kiely possibly expecting something with a bit more oomph, throws it into his goal.

OK, us winning at Walsall, isn't quite that unlikely, but not far off.....but it shows it can happen.

3-1 Town, Smith hat-trick, us letting in a silly goal because that is what we do at the moment.

Another depressing evening.

3-0 loss

What Audrey said.
A drumming is on the cards and we're the patsies.

Dr Jekyll will be making an appearance again. 2-1 defeat.

2-2 draw Ranger and luongo. Hopefully,a decent away performance for a change

I hope they don't have a drum.  :)

You're a positive bundle of joy these days Reg. Did you get the keys to an East European brothel for Christmas?

If you're going to mention that game it's only fair that you mention Frank Talia's transformation into the best goalkeeper in the world for 90 minutes. He was unbelievable. People talk about Brezovan at Hartlepool, and OK he saved two penalties, but Talia at Charlton is still the best goalkeeping performance I've ever seen.

Made a last minute decision to go this game anyway, fully expecting a defeat so anything plus is a bonus!

Unfortunately I can`t see this being anything other than a home win - hoping Cooper will play both Smith and Ranger but something tells me he won`t - 3-0.  :cry:

Don't think he's allowed to play 2 up top, could play one on the wing like he'd do with N'Guessan or Ajose, but neither Ranger or Smith would be any good on the wing.

I went to the Charlton game on the off chance as my missus at the time had lost her gran who lived nearby so I went to the game as she met with family blah blah......

Epic away result....remember we scored in the opening minutes....cowes shot hit the post and hit the diving kiely and in...Charlton needed a win to go up to the Prem....they battered us...our goal was like a coconut shy.....happy day in a shit, skint season.....

With two up front I fancy us to get a 2-2 draw. Let's hope Power can persuade Spurs to let us change the formation  :)

 Whatever formation is chosen, you can't escape the basic point that on the rare occasions...3, that we've kept a clean sheet we've got 7 of our 9 away points. We've 1 point from a going a goal down.

A lot of the goals conceded on the road, come from errors or ineptitude at set plays where big defenders score, and there's just no sign of it changing. Therefore, parking the bus although tempting really is pointless, because it's just about inevitable we'll concede anyway. Playing Ranger and Smith together, would make sense from a defensive point of view....I'd also have Louis Thompson in...

Loved this game. They were also after some kind of club record for undefeated run or something.

Hope to be proved wrong but can't see past another 2-0 defeat  :(

1-3 Walsall

I don't often agree with you but I do here. It infuriates me that we set up to not lose when it just doesn't work, we can't do it because mistakes are inevitable and we can't defend for shit. It just makes so much more sense to go out and attack. At least then, if we do lose, we've had a go (a la Wolves, where no one seemed to care that we'd actually lost).

Walsall will press us hard and force mistakes so it probably would be ideal to have 5 in midfield. TBF I can't think of a team that will go out there and get a result.

I'm sure Cooper will think Walsall are essentially a counter attacking team, and therefore to go gung-ho, will be playing into their hands....so no doubt it will be the cautious approach.

Looking at the forecast and if they are in the same band of rain that is here, I reckon at best it will be a primeval swamp....If it goes ahead!

Port Vale has gone, and Walsall is also in Staffs. (old money)

Didn't they (Walsall) call it off for a light dusting of snow a few years ago.

Let's hope they have a different groundsman.

Jay Mac and Mason both failed the fitness test and don't play today.

Town: Foderingham, Thompson N, Branco, Ward (C), Reckord, Kasim, Luongo, Thompson L, Pritchard, Ranger, Smith

Subs: Belford, Byrne, Harley, Barthram, Barker, Storey, Gladwin

Blimey, Ranger and Smith both playing. It will be interesting to see what system we use.

Went past the Bescot this morning on the way to our co.'s annual conference. Eclectic mix of people to mingle with tonight including our colleagues from Poland, Ireland and Italy. Lovely bunch of people had a good laugh with them last year. Might be absent for much of the conversations tonight as i'll be checking in regularly. I'll convert them to the cause if i can even our American colleagues (wonder if they know the Swadlypoopers?).

COYR

Like the look of midfield with Thompson in there, plus obviously Smith and Ranger up front. The defence makes me shudder though.

We have no natural winger in the team (not sure if Pritchard can be classed as a winger or attacking midfielder) that would seem that we are going to play with 2 holding midfielders in Kasim and Thompson in front the back 4 with Luongo in front as a centre midfield and Pritchard in a free/attacking role behind the front 2.

Unusual formation considering we will be playing with 2 6 foot 2+ strikers and what would appear to be no winger.

Might well work or maybe Pritchard and Luongo will be playing wide, hard to tell really.

Two big lads up front then!

I imagine it'll either be a 4-5-1 with Ranger on the wing or a 4-1-3-2 with Louis/Kasim in front of the defence and Pritch, Kasim/Louis, Luongo. I suppose Pritchard could play as inbetween the Strikers and Midfield.

Either way, seems more likely we're going to be playing through the middle than up the flanks. Good looking team.

They may be in defence yet we don't Know,  :suicide:

Ah the 6,4,0

Happy to see Louise in there and the 2 big units upfront.
I guess Reis is our only true winger whenever he is fit again

It's the team, given available players, that I suggested this morning....Smith and Ranger should be able to improve the dire set piece situation....Pritchard can play a link role, a bit like Martin Ling used to do....if it doesn't work then fair enough back tomthe drawing board.

We will win this 2-0 with an early goal coming our way...just a feeling.

More hope than expectation but I like the look of that team and I'm going for a 3-2 win.

Coops very cautious about talking about Smith/Ranger as a combination in the pre-match interview. I think he's doing a sterling job with Ranger as he obviously seems to loathe him.

Not sure how you can play Ranger and Smith in the side without playing 2 up front?! So presumably it's a standard 4-4-2 with Kasim in the holding role. Anyway I think we'll win 2-1! C.O.Y.Rs!!!

Christian Roberts co commentator on BBC wilts
Should be interesting

Agree on that. He does come across as being easily loathable, too.

This must be about his 5th or 6th game he has commentated on for BBCRS he has a problem with several Town players names!

Is my request for Pritchard to play wide being granted?

I like Roberts commentating he does not say "Swindon"he says "we" like a true fan!

You know, it's a good pass you know, you know. You have to fight for it you know. He can create damage, you know.

Roberts you know. Now it's in your head peeps ;)

It's alright, other than Luongo and Branco there aren't that many difficult names.

Agent Flint scores so shitty one down  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

1-1 now

Sounds all Warsaw at the mo,
We seem a touch of the pace.

Cmon town

Fodderington?

I did say there weren't too many...

.....and Smith must score!

Well he has got a pillard in the way  :pint:

We are 2-0 up on shots on target !

Where does this idea that Spurs dictate the formation come from? Have the mongs on Thisis not noticed that we've played in about 6 formations so far this season? And that the person that supposedly dictates our formation, Tim Sherwood, has played 442 with his first team since he took charge?

 :facepalm:

Bollocks

Ah crap 1-0 Walsall

oh well

  ::)

balls

You are right Roberts. Now is the time to show some balls.

bugger

Fuck Sake! Still a long way to go mind...

Well, statistically, that looks like the end of that then.  :doh:

(http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/eddie-whaaa.gif)

And cock.

Get em on the bus at half time, save a bit of electricity.

It was always going to happen

Shame, we were holding on and getting the odd chance, by the sounds of it. I guess we've lost the game now.

Sounds horribly familiar.

This terrible away form is becoming tiresome (assuming the inevitable happens)

Oooh a corner...

(http://www.showmenumbers.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/mystic-meg-horoscop_384331a.jpg)

I think we'll win this.  Bouncebackability.

It says on bbc text. Foderingham wins free kick in the attacking half. What's all that about?

That's about why NO-ONE follows the game on BBC text.  ;)

Don't know who Foderingham is, we only have someone called Foderington.

I like the surprise element of it.

(http://i934.photobucket.com/albums/ad185/swindon123/irony_zps568e3d28.jpg)

Doing the rounds on Twitter....makes you wanna cry :badmood:

Flash..aaaaaaaaaaahhh. BBC Wilts texter..

Who does our defensive coaching for chrissakes?

We should make a list of roberts classic quotes.....

He's having the battle within the battle

Tim Sherwood I think

I nearly considered going tonight. What is wrong with me?

Yes, Barthram on for Pritchard. We are going for the 1-0 loss.

edit: 3 at the back maybe...that worked last time against them. Oh.

I hope my moaning somehow inspires the gods of mocking to grant us an inspired comeback.

Better to lose 1-0 than 3-0, let's shut up shop

TBH Pritch sounds like he's being a petulant child so best to take him off before he gets red carded. Barthram would not be my personal choice of sub though...

I guess so, I'd have gone for Storey wide instead. Try to get a bit of pace in there.

Yessssss

Yeessssssssssssss 1-1

Never in doubt. Get the fuck in Smudger.

Yess get in there 1 1

Goàaaaaaal Smith again.

:D

Late winner from smudgster  ;)

Smith again..... Pressure was starting to build so let's hope they push on...

My faith never wavered!

FUCKING GEDDDIN THERRRRREEEEEEE


New Sammy Parkin, new Sammy paaaarrrrrkin

Come on Town...lets win it.

Excellent.  Now don't bugger it up Town and give away a stupid goal.

Great stuff Mr Smith!!! Come on Town!!!

Is Sam's twitter feed down for everyone? Updates please.

New Keith Scott!!!!!!

4059. 422 us

Lets fucking hope not

Not a bad turnout from town considering our away form and its midweek

Indeed.  When did Walsall crowds drop so low?

Lets hope its Storey time.

1984?

Yeah that's pisspoor, especially when they're going quite well really.

They've never had good crowds though.  Not hard to see why.  Warsaw must be full of Wolves and Baggies fans.

Yay! 1-1  :beers:

Good point. Very good indeed.

Will take that with our away form of late

Good point that IMO, especially after recent away games/Walsall playing us off the park earlier in the season!

Brilliant result considering how shit we have been away from home recently.

Like the two up top as well.

Who were these people judging Rossi Branco after one performance? Sounded like he was the best defender on the pitch tonight.

Well not a great game but a hard earned point,
Lets hope that stops the rot away.

Smith looking a decent buy .

Good point.  Hopefully might get that lead weight from around our necks away from home now.

Take that, well done to Mr Smith. Had a very little bet on the draw as well!

Well done Town. Good result.

more than happy with that

Excellent. Hopefully we can build on it

Well chuffed with that. TheNewSamParkin to transform our season

In the circumstances a commendable result....

Coops now on air

I love how blunt Coops is.....

Good result ! Well done Town, win on Saturday and Happy Days  :)

Smudge on air - he's from the north east, I was expecting a cockney accent for some reason  ???

I swear the Thompsons were raised inside helium.

Troy is making friends on Twitter again.

He should be in bed, he's playing tomorrow.

2 minutes after Smith scored Branson finally saw sense and made my broadband work again. Bastards.

Tijane and TAH playing against Brum tomorrow in behind closed door friendly. These will be our last 2 'new signings', pushing us just that bit closer to the play offs. 4 points from 2 poor performances, hmmmm.

Happy with a point tonight - tough place to go. Couple that with the fact Flint scored an own goal which helped keep City 23rd, Rovers lost at home to Accrington, and Oxford have rather predictably slipped from top to 5th, I'm in a fairly chirpy mood.

Just got back...

We battled and got an unlikely point.

Positives: smith and Ranger looked good.

Negatives: Reckford wasn't positive. Midfield didn't exist...no wings/ crosses...

Ref was a wank homer....

Happy days anyway...

Walsall play how we should play. Clever in possession, off the ball movement is constant and very precise and they always looked like they were going to create something. Brandy was different class.

We were OK. Glimpses of decent stuff but generally we lacked creativity and the players all stood still too often when the ball approached Walsalls final third.  Louis did pretty well in midfield, Smith played just about every position and deserved his goal for his workrate alone. Rest were a bit meh, Branco threw himself at everything to his credit though.

they all worked hard for that though. Except Ranger, who is being very quickly overshadowed by Smith.

Decent point against a very good side. We seem to have a higher than average percentage of spastic fans who should be taken out into a field and shot in the back of the head, at 1-0 down some of the things being said were pathetic. They soon shut up by the end. Branco played well but never looks too far from disaster, a bit like LJF. Fods good, Pritchard awful again, for every good game he has 3/4 shockers, tonight was one of those. 1 million? Even if you offered him to me for 200k I'd rather buy someone else. Reckord looked dodgy, but he's still getting to know his teammates so he deserves a bit of time. Smith looks a solid signing. Oh and one last thing, Cooper's been criticised for his tactics but today he got it spot on second half, with the change to 3 at the back, stopped their momentum for a good 20 minutes and got us our goal.

Then I shall be eating humble pie for lunch, that system was woeful against them at home. No two games are the same I suppose.

Well that was a big result - bloody marvellous. Didn`t see that coming - pleased to see that he did play Smith and Ranger it seemed to work reading the reports. Now need to get some away victories sorted and we might just might sneak in the final play off place.  ;D

I didn't think Smith and Ranger worked at all. They combined to get us a goal on Saturday but they were normally either miles away from each other or going for the same ball. Smith spent a good portion of the game on the right wing as well.

The diamond doesn't really work as we are far too narrow and obvious so Coopers change worked pretty well. It was quite pleasing to see us not play totally into their hands as we knew they would hit on the break.

Oh and everyone seems to have gotten stuck in the traffic by us. We weren't even out of Swindon til 5.45 and we flew straight through!

Did it make us look any more secure at defending set plays?  This was my thinking for playing them both.

4 "undeserved" points against Walsall and Posh whilst playing badly, pretty good sign and maybe a little bit of Karma for the points we undeservedly dropped earlier in the season when playing well.

One of the London lads who went, said once cooper realised Smith and Ranger aren't wingers, and moved them in we started playing better, he said it wasn't until around the hour mark though that the change was made.

That was probably when Barthram came on and we switched to 352.  Not sure why we wouldn't play a straight 442 with Ranger and Smith upfront. With strikers like that, we're crying out for some wide play. Byrne has excellent delivery and good pace, he's perfect for that kind of role.

He's kinda right, IMO.

We started off quite brightly, kept the ball well and slowed the game which Walsall were determined to play at the quickest pace possible. This infuriated the hell out of the few shouty men by me but actually worked quite nicely. Walsall's goal came from an incredibly soft free kick (but Pritchards own fault after taking about 4 touches too many) and after that we weren't quite as fluid. In the second half we needed change, and the Barthram sub / switch in play did improve us.

It was quite frustrating seeing us have the two big men up top and almost point blank refuse to put the ball in the box. However, we actually looked a threat from set peices and we did defend them a hell of a lot better than we have been doing recently.

It was always gonna be hard. Walsall, for me, are the best team in the league. They are similar to Brentford, but play with a bit more honesty (I'll overlook the 3 or 4 quite blatant attempts from some of their players to win a penalty) and they've assembled their squad on a modest budget. The fact we actually put some hard work in and saw the benefit was pleasing, but there's a lot of room for improvement. Another factor working against us was the referee and linesmen, who made some incredibly poor decisions that worked against us. The most puzzling was their centre midfield hoofing the ball out of play, their striker running to the linesman to appeal for a corner and the lino looked as if he just went, "...yeah go on then". He also gave them a free kick for westcarr randomly barging Branco to the floor.

Why is the Walsall manager banging on about a 'nailed on' penalty they should have had and that we were kicking lumps out of Brandy and he should have got more protection from the ref

Sam said on twitter he thought Branco was lucky not to give away a penalty. Guess it's that.

Brief highlights up. Some more messy defending to lament, but at least the oppo looked fast and dangerous this time.www.youtube.com/watch?v=cylrNro0XyA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cylrNro0XyA)

Not really got a compliant about their goal, it's just a good move that would have opened up better defences than ours.

I thought that too, class goal.

The ball out from there Goalie cut through us and the step over dummy took the rest of ours out the equation.  

Not sure I agree. Yes they picked their passes well, but if you're going to back off, at least stay tight to your runners. The defender was miles away from each pass.

Little bit of inexperience from Branco maybe, he chased the ball not the man, but I don't think he'd have got there anyway.

Yes............non compliance is the big issue here

Kudos to Walsall, their pitch looked superb.

Did it meet the brief, was it on-message, and did it hit budget ?

Does anyone else see what appears to be an annoyed Nile Ranger having a go at Smith/Luongo after Smith scores? At first glance it looks like a celebration, but I watched it back twice and he looks more like he's complaining. Weird.

He definately looks a bit pissed off.

Then again fuck knows what goes on in his head at the best of times.

He does look pissed off.

He (Ranger) was unmarked at the back post yet Luongo crossed it to smith who had a marker on him. A bit of a silly complaint though considering Smith scored, if Smith had missed it Ranger may have had a point.... although Ranger also looked well offside to me.

I wonder if this is why Ranger was subbed?

Ward crossed it?

Yep, Ward crossed it.

Maybe he was saying 'see what happens when we cross the ball into the box' could be just a dig at the manager.

Good finish from Smith