The reason we are rubbish

[DV]

The midfield was the problem when we went down a few years ago, as they'd never break up any counter attacks, hence that awful goal against ? FC when their lad ran the whole length of the pitch without be tackled or pressured once.

brentford? paul brooker?

[A Gent Orange]

For me, Saturday wasn't a failure of motivation, personality, or how much someone shouts. It was a couple of horrible errors coupled with lack of thought - be that from the players or from the bench. Playing against ten men is surely all about dragging the opposition out of their set positions. That means players moving and the ball moving quickly and simply from one flank to the other.

Key to that is getting the full backs to overlaps and support the attack - not blindly but at the right times. After the opposition can't double up on the wingers and protect the back four with a shield as Leeds did. Okay so Smith is on the wrong side and can't go forward as well as he'd like - also McNamee didn't use him as he should. But Amakwaah? He looked terrified of the ball and clumsy when he had it to feet. He failed utterly to get beyond JPM and Marshall or support them at all. Instead he hovered in no mans land.

As for the subject of Ifil being given the ball, Leeds let him have it. Whenever they closed the back line down, Beckford and the blonde lad who hit the floor a lot, would drop of Ifil ensuring that he was open for the pass. It is something that we would all recommend doing if we were scouts watching Swindon for another side. Okay so he made it worse but it was a pretty simple strategy...

What all this means I don't know but I guess ultimately I have to blame the management - something I've been fairly loathed to do so far.

Apologies for length and girth.

[janaage]

The ability to go from one flank to the other on Saturday was lacking.  One time Macca was in acres of space, think JPM had the ball, it took us 5 passes to get the ball to McNamee by which time Leeds had closed him down.  We are not dynamic enough.  Pass and move....

[Samdy Gray]

My two penneth...

We're only 6 games into the season and it's far to early to start judging. Yes, we're lacking in some departments but we're by no means rubbish. The same team you lot are moaning about tore Tranmere to pieces 5 weeks ago.

By Swindon standards, we've only had two poor results this season - one against Colchester and another against Leeds. I can't really comment on the Colchester game because I wasn't there, but as for Leeds I really didn't think we were collectively that bad as a team, we we're punished for stupid individual errors by one of, if not the best, team in the league - even if they did only have 10 men.

As for the players, yes, Smith made a bad howler on Saturday but it was only a couple of months ago people were harping on about how we had the best two 'keepers in the league. IMO, Ifil is just being Ifil. He goes through spells where he just seems utterly brilliant and then he'll have a patch where he's utterly shit. I also don't understand all the abuse Aljofree gets, I thought he won his fair share of headers and tackles on Saturday.

IMO it's the result of one game that's got lots of peoples backs up and got the likes of Bart (and others) back to their moaning again. It's one defeat against a very good team after a bad day at the office for two of our players. I'm certainly not going to start worrying yet and I won't judge Malpas or anybody else until we go on a proven losing streak.

[Batch]

A Gent Orange, that's a different view and a good one. We had to wear them down, we didn't. Of course conceeding sloppy goals knocked the stuffing out of us too.

You have to credit Leeds too. When we did start to get on top in the second half they countered by bringing off Blondie and going 4-4-1. They tightened up and took control again

Blaming the management is easy (not a dig at anyone), they may have told the players to do it but been ignored. Oh wait, I guess that's not really effective management

[janaage]

brentford? paul brooker?

very possibly Dev, I was disgusted at the time!

[Samdy Gray]

brentford? paul brooker?

Jay Tabb wasn't it? Went to Coventry a couple of weeks afterwards.

I remember screaming at Nicholas to just bring him down and take the yellow card - alas, he didn't.

[DV]

Jay Tabb wasn't it? Went to Coventry a couple of weeks afterwards.

I remember screaming at Nicholas to just bring him down and take the yellow card - alas, he didn't.

Nicholas set up all 3 of their goals that game. Im sure I remember it being a Paul Brooker hat trick....

[Arriba]

nicho had a mare that day.but matey who's name i cannot remember who had a 3 year deal but rarely played got outrun for one of the goals too

[DV]

The goal scorers were Paul Brooker, Marcus Gayle and Callum Willock!!

Brooker got the goal because the goal scorer was white! He didnt get a hat trick, hat trick of assists for Nicho....

[DV]

nicho had a mare that day.but matey who's name i cannot remember who had a 3 year deal but rarely played got outrun for one of the goals too

Whalley

[LucienSanchez]

Is it wrong that i'm still totally deflated by our defeat at Cheltenham? I can't believe we lost to them... that annoyed me far more than the Leeds game.

[Colin Todd]

For me, Saturday wasn't a failure of motivation, personality, or how much someone shouts. It was a couple of horrible errors coupled with lack of thought - be that from the players or from the bench. Playing against ten men is surely all about dragging the opposition out of their set positions. That means players moving and the ball moving quickly and simply from one flank to the other.

Key to that is getting the full backs to overlaps and support the attack - not blindly but at the right times. After the opposition can't double up on the wingers and protect the back four with a shield as Leeds did. Okay so Smith is on the wrong side and can't go forward as well as he'd like - also McNamee didn't use him as he should. But Amakwaah? He looked terrified of the ball and clumsy when he had it to feet. He failed utterly to get beyond JPM and Marshall or support them at all. Instead he hovered in no mans land.

As for the subject of Ifil being given the ball, Leeds let him have it. Whenever they closed the back line down, Beckford and the blonde lad who hit the floor a lot, would drop of Ifil ensuring that he was open for the pass. It is something that we would all recommend doing if we were scouts watching Swindon for another side. Okay so he made it worse but it was a pretty simple strategy...

What all this means I don't know but I guess ultimately I have to blame the management - something I've been fairly loathed to do so far.

Apologies for length and girth.

Totally agree with this. We were far from good, but were nowhere near as bad as some have suggested.

Take the 2 shocking goal costing errors out and Leeds didnt create a stack of chances, whilst Cox had a couple of good efforts stopped by superb goalkeeping.

Ultimatley the management do have to take the blame, as do the players.

The management could and should have changed tactics to react to leeds when they went 2-1 up.

The players should have enough about them to realise what A Gent Orange has said: that the ball needed moving quickly to pull people out of position. They still had 2 men on Macca at times with 10 men FFS! 

[A Gent Orange]

You have to credit Leeds too. When we did start to get on top in the second half they countered by bringing off Blondie and going 4-4-1. They tightened up and took control again

I do credit Leeds. They were far better than us and utterly deserved their win. And McAllister got almost of his subs and tactics right too. They also knew when to kick us and take the cards.

I'm not trying to play down quite how sloppy we were - I'm just formulating these arguments as I type because on Saturday I was too furious/pissed to think them through. All I could do was sulk into my beer and fume with impotent rage.

[janaage]

I was properly angry on Saturday evening, really annoyed me the way we were let down.  Chilled out a bit since then not sure if I'll make the Millwall game due to family commitments but hopefully I'll be there.  Really need to see a decent Town display to make me feel better about the current goings on.