Thetownend.com

Oh, alright, go on then.....

I had a close encounter with a robin this morning when I went to buy my newspaper.  A lucky omen?

No, more the signs of winter approaching. 1-2!

Winter is coming? I've been hearing that for years.

I can't see past a comfortable win, for them. 1-3.

Last time I proclaimed a robin as "a sign" we lost, heavily.

Cheeky 1-0 win. Murray.

Sounds good.

A complete battering but it remains at 0-0 thanks to more heroics from Vigs, only for us to snatch it in the 91st minute thanks to a lucky ricochet off Norris's arse.

Was it being fucked by a bantam?

Surprising win today. Can't be arsed to look but I think we may be a bit of a bogey team for them.

Really strange feeling that we're going to win today - 2-1

No prediction, but it's time to start improving the home form and stay in range of mid table.

Don't particularly want to end up in a mini league of 6 or 7 at the bottom come March / April time.

Just leaving sunny Battersea now. Last home game of 2016 for me, hope it's a good game but fearful Bradford will be too good and strong for us.

I'll predict 1-2

With Bradford up in 4th place with only 2 defeats in the league so far - 1 at Pox 1-0 and a 3-0 at Southend in their last away game, they have kept 8 clean sheets in the league and only conceded 17 in total so far in 19 games they will be very very hard to break down.

The County Ground has not been a lucky ground for the Bantums with only 3 wins coming in the 18 matches we have played at the CG with Town winning 11 of them.

You have to go back to 2005, 5 matches since they last won here with us winning the last 3 on the bounce.

But with our patchy form I can't honestly see past a defeat today. 0-3 with 6,456 there with 565 norverners.

 We haven't had a draw at the CG yet this season in the league. Probably about as much as we can hope for, Bradford seem to be a sort of Bolton, dour dirty norverners, with a defensive mindset.

0-2 defeat

My Bantam supporting mate thinks they will struggle to score so I'll go for 3-3.

The robins have been very off hand this season....in a good season, you can engage a robin by whistling away to it, it'll cock its little head and listen, and even sometimes reply.  This season, they just turn their backs and nip off quickly, with an air of disdain. Clever things robins....they know shit.

http://www.richannel.org/jim-al-khalili-and-the-quantum-robin

Not looking forward to this and expect pain.  3 0 defeat, abject surrender and lots of booing.

Who's out today? Yaser,Doughty,Thompson?

Kasim and Doughty in contention for a return

Thomas suspended....Nathan injured, apparently a chance for Yaser and Doughty.

4-2 swindon

(http://i.imgur.com/543ljq6.gif)

Well, that looks an attacking line-up

BREAKING TEAM NEWS

SWINDON TOWN v Bradford City: Vigouroux; Furlong, Branco, Jones, Ormonde-Ottewill; Rodgers, Doughty; Delfouneso, Goddard, Brophy; Obika (capt).

Subs: Henry, Smith, Evans, Murray, Iandolo, Young, Norris.

0-0 We cant' score and they can defend but dont score many !

2-0 Swindon. Delf and Norris on the score sheet.

Wonder what odds you'd get on that?  :no:

Hodgetts: "what effect has tim had on the squad?"
Vigoroux :"yeah,no....."
Why do people say "yeah,no" at the start of a sentence?

Hockaday. We're doomed. Doomed I tell ye.

Hockaday"end to end stuff"
Hodgetts (if it be he)"yeah,no"
Im getting obsessed

R Dodgers .....1 nil :wotjump: :wotjump: :D

30 yard free kick

Btw that gif is fucking up my tablet

First time in a while I've listened via Player, forgot how fucking dreadful it is

Ahhhhhhhh,  it's ok on mine  :crash:  

Yes

Obika is a monster. Key player. Brophy is lost out on the right.

The Bradford player is perfect.

Great free kick from Rodgers

Decent game, Bradford have missed a couple that they should have scored.

Feel sorry for Brophy, he looks woefully out of form & is being easily brushed off the ball. Assume it's a lot to do with lack of matches recently.

Other than that the rest are doing ok

Which one? Hanson? :D

For the record...yes STFC Player is shocking in quality and content.

good first 35 looked good going forward, bit  vulnerable at the back (surprise).

lost way last 10 a bit but Bradford didn't really do much. they have missed a couple but so have we.

brophy off the pace and out of position. but his pace could be useful yet

6,344 attendance

Skin of the teeth hanging on now.

Boom. Job done.

But we had less possession than them :hmmm:

6 points off the play offs.

Settle down!

Great result that. Nice to show a bit of fight for the last couple of games

say we are going / staying up
say we are going / staying up

choose your version depending on how confident you are

7 points from 12 in league games since Sherwood has come in. I think the break with no FA Cup next week will help us too.

2 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat in the last 4 league matches since tactics Tim came in....play off form? ;) :D

I'll have to dig out my betting slip. 50/1 for promotion!

Did Luke do the after match talk?

A ground out win by a team that doesn't grind out wins is very satisfying

The difference in our attack with and without obika (and his big arse) is night and day

Yes pritty much straight away, I expect tim was is in talking with the players

What a difference obeeks makes.He might not be a goal machine, but his strength, his presence, gives us so much more.

Very even game. And that should be taken as a very good thing. This was no smash and grab, had we taken our chances, we'd have been clear. Had Bradford taken their chances we'd have lost. Anyone's game.

So a flickering within the STFC camp. Charlton and Bradford defeated and two clean sheets. We know we can be Rochdale shite, so lets not get too carried away yet. But things look somewhat better than a week or so ago.

 An unexpected win always tastes that bit sweeter. It's getting tight down the foot of the table, just gives us a bit of respite.  Chesterfield are recovering, but Bury are happily dropping as are Rovers and Cobblers, who looked pretty mediocre when easily seeing off us. Cov, Oldham and Shrews will be worrying. Would like to see Franchise implode, but feels somehow unlikely.

As mentioned we now have our annual early mid season break, so a chance for players to get some Christmas shopping done.

Life in the corpse

05/06 sell Fallon in January.....relegated
 
10/11 sell Austin in January.....relegated

16/17  ??? Obika in January.....

You'd like to think Power will accept that getting a few quid for SJO in Jan is not worth it and take the hit in the summer.

Was it? I listened to Bradford comms and they reckon they dominated it, particularly in the 2nd half.

Did they fuck

I know it was in March rather than January but Fjørtoft as well...

BBC match stats looks like they edged possesion. Good result.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38035306

Signs of a more pragmatic, and sensible, approach.

6 wins, all to nil, all after scoring first

We are a weird team

Power said at start of season he won't sell obika so we see if he keeps that, but his value isn't that great (not the 200k we paid for him) as he is so injury prone.

Good game today, actually showed some grit and steel, think Southend was a confidence boosting result and today sounds like we went at them from the go and didn't sit back and let them overwhelm us (like Rochdale and Eastleigh).

Every player has his price, but I can't see Beeks being valued at much lately. I can't see an offer coming in that will be enough.

Where's Reg?

He posted in the previous page, talking about relegation.

 ;D

To be fair if we'd picked up 0 points last 4 days we all would.

I thought today was a good battle between two decent sides. Bradford's number 4 ran the midfield and their number 3 was ripping us to bits down the left second half.

Rodgers goal got him the man of the match award, and he did little wrong (he even made a successful tackle! But for me Obika was exceptional. Strong hold up play and should have had a couple of goals second half, one when Doughty fucked up a 3 on 1 and then blazing over when it looked easier to score.

We were hanging on a bit at the end but players were throwing themselves into challenges and putting their heads in where it hurts, Furlong made one brave headed clearance at the back post. Mention also to Tom Smith who played left back and was excellent, biting into tackles, winning headers and keeping possession well.

Fight, desire and belief. Long been missing but long may it last!

Exciting game, we did well against a very fast and crisp passing side.  A good honest performance from us, thought Bradford were one of the better teams to visit SN1, they moved us about and ripped us a new one down the left, looked more threatening than us but couldn't get much on target.  A draw would probably have been a fair result but we were outpassed today and couldn't take the chances we did make.  Everybody put a good shift in today, sadly Brophy was not even 50% fit and was rightfully subbed.  Impressed with the 40 minutes that Tom Smith put in, neat and tidy and aggressive.  What a difference Obika makes, holds the ball up and lay it off to our players.  I suppose Rodgers got mom for the goal, but my vote would have gone to Beeks or John Goddard. Final point - the referee was a complete tosser - classic when he was telling Vigs to hurry up and take a goal kick when the ball wasn't even back on the field!!

Pretty much spot on, a very enjoyable game and agree Obika was MOM.

depends how you view 'dominated'. in the second half they had a lot of the ball in spells, they did little with it. we were as creative as them and looked as dangerous.

the first half I thought we were the better team on most stats that matter.

We were better first half, they were better in the second. Both teams had alot of good chances and we had a perfectly good goal ruled out.

As good a player as Obika is, his injury record will hold him back from a big move.

This is why a relegation battle is interesting....we did get those points.

Anyone catch the disability match between Swindon and Bradford at half time?

One of the Swindon lads scored and I've never seen such a joyous reaction. They seemed to enjoy their lap of honour, I thought that was a lovely touch by both clubs.

Not sure how you win to nil without scoring first ;)

Great result. Nice to hear that we are playing with the extra bit between our teeth. It's the scrappy, dogmatic defending that we've all been calling for. No doubt aided by Obika at the top end of the pitch. It makes a big difference to have someone who makes the ball stick at the opposite end of the pitch. The more time the ball spends being passed between our back four, the more likely we are to make a mistake. Much better to have the option of going a bit more direct.

Don't think we're likely to sell Obika on. As Flashheart says, I'm doubtful any transfer fee will be of more value to us than Obika's presence. Injuries or no injuries. Think we need to get another of the Obika mould in January (easier said than done) to do a similar job when he's strapped up.

I really enjoyed it particularly given I thought it would be abject surrender. Beeks MOM for me. Doughty and Goddard were both good at bringing the ball from midfield to attack. Branco also was excellent today. Beeks makes such a difference. He gave the ball away cheaply a bit today but is so strong but should have scored when he shanked it over the bar. Bradford were a decent side and I'd have their no 4 in our midfield. They should have had 3 in the first half. I couldn't believe the miss before we scored when they ripped us one down our right and their guy only had Vigs to beat and shanked it yards wide.
The most pleasing aspect for me was the number of Bradford players biting the dirt. We were quite aggressive in a very controlled way with only Doughty getting booked.
Its amazing when you put the effort in and get in their faces.

Tom Smith put a cracking tackle in on James Hanson in the corner, probably the biggest outfield player on the pitch, which I particularly enjoyed.

Yes.  I thought they were great.  Such joy on their faces at the end!

Very limited highlights here.
Disappointed they didn't show Rodgers celebration.

http://www.skysports.com/football/swindon-vs-bradford/358900

Enjoyable game today, with dare I say it, two decent sides.

We look to have a strong spine to the team now with Vigs, Branco (very good today, back four seems to suit him better than playing in a three), Doughty and Super Jon.

Llandolo also got booked for a shirt pull.

That was brilliant and loved the lad who scored and his dancing, still putting a smile on my face now, what a legend. Highlight of my week, by a distance!

And the Bradford lad who was doing high 5s with Town fans in the DR at the end - lovely to see.

I enjoyed that today.

We rode our luck a bit but also fluffed a few good chances ourselves.

Rodgers isn't my favourite but he did well today even without the top drawer free kick.

Frustrated in the second half that our left wing continued to be a soft target.

Loved the way we dug...lifted the TE who sung a bit.

Three points, is three points....and three closer to the glorious 51..

And people on here say the Adver are shite

http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/football/bradford-city/swindon-town-0-1-bradford-city-sublime-rodgers-free-kick-deflates-bantams-1-8260994

That's one way to get the press on your side I s'pose.

Well done Bradford on the 3 points, seems a tad shifty to me though.

I don't think I've ever known anyone to be more consistently wrong in all of my life.

I thought that Rodgers was terrible and a passenger, apart from the free kick goal.

We seem to play better against teams with target men, Charlton with Novak and Bradford with Hanson. When teams field 3 front pacey attacks, we struggle to adapt.

Bradford fans on their forum moaning about their failing against one of the "lesser teams" in the division :D

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v88/12_string/LiveJournal/Image001-23.jpg) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/12_string/media/LiveJournal/Image001-23.jpg.html)

To be fair, some of our own fans were moaning last week that we could only hold on for a point away to Southend.

Ha ha ha....

Those highlights remind of what HTV used to dish up and then show us 10 minutes of the shitheads....

The goal and that celebration here (https://www.facebook.com/SwindonTownFootballClub/videos/1323320654374443/)


Or in slow mo here! (https://twitter.com/theredadair/status/802534322431467520)

Ha ha.

That celebration was nearly as good as the goal.

I didn't celebrate the goal I was laughing so hard.

There was a lot of hugging going on there. No doubt some fans will view this as highlighting how 'soft' we are.

"It wasn't like that in my day, was it 'eck as like.
In my day you got a firm handshake, now you get covered in love bites"

(Paraphrasing Rigsby) :)

Haha, yes!  Time for it's annual airing, then.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4CXY6TVBMc

Did anybody else notice the awkwardness of the Fonz trying and failing to get in on the celebrations with Rogers after the goal?  Not suggesting there's anything in it, it just amused me.

I would sell him. Not worth keeping him so he plays 5 matches between now and the end of the season.

Sent from my SM-G935F

That option depends on who we bring in.

5 matches with obika is worth it if the others are with Norris and Delf, where we'd need every point we can get.

You must be mad if you think we should sell Obika we should be offering him more money to stay and I hope TS can help persuade him to stay. The difference Obika makes to our front line - his holding up of the ball - his power and pace and the way he turns defenders and brings other players into play something we haven't got in any other forward. We look a different side with him up front and defenders are scared of his pace.
We need to keep Obika if we can and if he insists on leaving no way should we sell him in January. Strikers are a premium and there are few about and I cant believe some of you think he should go. Yes he's injury prone but even so when he does play he is a key player for us.

He was left hanging for a high 5 for an uncomfortable amount of time. And when he did get it, it wasn't from the person intended!

I suspect the chances of Obika departing will be directly linked to the number of games he plays between now and the end of January, based on his track record there is time for 3-4 injuries between now and then and if his current injury record continues I would be surprised to see someone take a chance on him. He is a vital player for us when on the field but sadly he is rarely on the pitch which rather influences his significance.

What's that celebration all about? Anything in particular?

It was onside. Just.

(http://i1268.photobucket.com/albums/jj571/frenchreds/Screenshot%202016-11-28%2011.29.50.png) (http://s1268.photobucket.com/user/frenchreds/media/Screenshot%202016-11-28%2011.29.50.png.html)

The Bradford comms were up in arms, claiming that he should have got a yellow card for putting the ball in the net while he must have known it was off-side.

Opposition comms are usually reasonably balanced, not the Bradford lot it seems.

Imagine being up in arms over something so trivial.

The way they were banging on you'd have thought he was deliberately time-wasting.

My favorite deliberate time-wasting ploy is the one where the player walking off slowly when being substituted is told by the Ref to hurry it up and the player then does that silly 'pretending to be jogging but actually now moving slower than walking pace' thing.   :D

Never understood why they dont tell the player to leave at the side of the pitch he is closer to

My favourite bit of time wasting is when you bring on Moses Ashikodi and take him off again.

Young Tom Smith in the L1 Team of the Week

Fair play to him, but that's weird. 40mins at left back without really doing anything in particular other than defending well...

Their LB was a class apart by all accounts.

Their left back was the excellent going forward but not at defending. Their no 4 was the class player on the pitch.

This is the thinking

The performance by Tom Smith in the one nil victory over Bradford City at the weekend at the County Ground was enough to earn them a place in the side alongside the other most impressive performers in the Football League pyramid.


I think we'll already know ourselves, and not just based on the latest performance, why Smith was selected as part of the team but explaining the choice - the FL blurb read.

'The in-form Bradford City often look to Mark Marshall to provide their attacking threat, but the winger was kept quiet by an unlikely source against Swindon. Teenage midfielder Tom Smith was forced to fill in as left-back in the second half, and the Robins youngster excelled as his side earned a 1-0 win.'

Read more: http://www.swindon.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=469826#ixzz4RKABDtc3

He is still incredibly ginger though!

He is also incredibly aggressive and full of running for a little ginger fucker. Just what we need. Worth giving a run in the side if he can stay fit.

I was surprised how little they freed Marshall up. First half they were trying to get him 1v1 by switching flanks from their left but we were trying to do the opposite with our right and getting the ball out to Delf and BOO so the game got bogged down.

Second half they were trying to get their left back out instead and using Marshall as part of that strong side.

Nicky Law (Bradford's no.4) is the best all round midfielder I've seen in League 1 this season (Otzumer - the best forward/no.10).  Vincelot was pretty classy at centre back too.  Thought Bradford were technically very good all round.

On Swindon:

Branco and Jones are good against old fashioned target men; Goddard keeps improving (if he could just bulk up a bit like Ozil did he'd be very good indeed); and Obika is vital.  Also, re set pieces: we now offer a threat and can defend them.  Actually quite a big side when Branco, Jones, Doughty, Obika and Norris are all playing.  BOO played well, although as Steve White pointed out he is always pulling his opponent's shirt when defending (presumably to give him leverage as he is so slight).  

Think someone else has mentioned before, but Tom Smith has a real sense of David Perkins about him. In time I think he'll be a pretty reasonable holding midfielder, perfectly suited to play alongside a creative DM like a fit Kasim.

He was superb.

Connor McGregor did it before his win vs Nate Diaz

I wish more of our players had some of the aggression Smith had Llandollo for example about two or three chances to put a strong tackle in but pulled out more worried about mucking his hair up. I like the tackle Smith did on the Hanson the biggest bloke on the pitch even though the tackle was unnecessary at least he let him know he was there and not going to take any shit.

Had Marshall in his pocket who got taken off 10 minutes later always great when that happens. I thought Marshall was there threat first half but second half he was poor.

Without doubt as some have said Nicky Law in midfield bossed it second half but he's got a lot of experience and been about and must be mid thirties now.

Ginger and Red don't go he needs to dye his hair strawberry blonde that little Smith.

Spent most of the half on a pendulum of "why did we let him go" on his approach to the box, then "oh, yeah, now I remember" when he crossed it.


Yeah, excellent performance from him. Bossed the midfield and linked everything up to. Was crying out for someone to flatten him!

I think he's really attractive  :lovestruck: but yes, I love his energy on the pitch.

Had he not been playing left back sure Smith would have relished flattening Law in much the same way he did Hanson