Swindon v Crawley pre match chat and matchday thread

[1989Monkey]

Garner has got a free pass this season and if he didn’t he would be under pressure by now. He may be a good coach but he’s a terrible manager. Can’t change a game, constant moaning at officials which then goes into the players, even the team selection today is baffling.

Michael Flynn was Clems first choice but given the time available and being contracted to Newport wasn’t feasible. I would do anything to get him in as manager right now. Possession of the ball is great but we don’t do anything with it. I can’t remember the last proper save a goalkeeper has had to make at the county ground.

Recruitment has been disappointing in my eyes. Defensive reinforcements look good but our attacking options are all the same type of player. A previous poster mentioned its like were an academy and it’s spot on. I worry the Barry signing was a waste given we could have got a different type of player to what we already have. Fully appreciate recruitment under the embargo must be difficult but then why are we still under the embargo. During the court case it was confirmed that Clems intention was to pay that loan back and remove the embargo straight away. Yet here we are still trying to live with it and I guess missing targets due to it.

This season just seems a waste, the league is so poor and yet we are slowly drifting to a mid table finish but its ok because possession wise we’ll be the best in the league.

[DiV]

Garner:
- Take the positives from that
- We just didn't take our chances
- Great performance. Didn't deserve not to win
- At least 10 penalties not given for us. They got one.
- Not clinical enough. Made a million chances
- Gladwin was super speedy in midfield, but his speed of thought didn't match the rest of the team
- We go again
- Not going to criticise the players. It was all down to the referee.
- Take the positives and move on.
- Very positive. Got minutes into Barry's legs
- If we were more clinical we'd have been in hospital

It was only the ‘10’ penalties that gives you away.
If you’d have said 1 or 2 I’d have believed this 100%

[DiV]

Meh, suppose a draw was a fair enough result even if grabbed late.  However, another team there for the taking to an extent.

I just don't think we are a good enough "team".  We have the look of a good sort of Academy team.  We are good in possession, when we are given time we look nice and tidy and we probably have some of the more gifted players with ball at feet in the division.  That is not enough to make a team in professional sports though.  We come with all the same issues an Academy team has, which is why nobody watches them.

We look ambivalent to set pieces - our only trick seems to be our own free kicks around th box leaving it to Reed.  Other than that it looks like it probably bores us to focus too much on the rest of the set piece repertoire.

We look like a team without blame - Academies, quite rightly, focus on the development aspects.  So you'll get critical feedback no doubt, but the result is secondary to the performance.

We look like we can really beat down a team once we get on top of them - confidence flows, the other teams struggle with our technique.  We also look just as likely to become very ragged if things start to go against us - the petulance of youth, the lack of experience to know when to focus, when to grind, when become more pragmatic etc.

We look very passive without the ball, like we spend all our time preparing for what to do with it.

I don't see us changing under someone like Garner, I don't see us changing with our approach to recruitment.  It's all kind of safe harmless fun.

I think the Transfer window wasn't that kind to us, but it's also a side effect of this approach.  KKH may not be a favourite of many on here, but he scared the shit out of defenders.  It created space even if he didn't make the best use of it.  It opens up the field for others.  We look toothless on the right now.  Simpson looks a better player than Davison.  Granted that is not on much time yet, but he just looks a meh type of player to me.  Competent enough, works hard, but lacks a strikers instinct.  Simpson maybe didn't have the latter either, but he just seemed a bit more instinctive, if a little less rounded in other aspects.

I still think the Play Offs are possible, but we haven't come into February looking a better team than we left December.  More of the same probably.

Absolutely this.
Garner is an academy coach/youth development officer having a go as a manager without adjusting his approach. Has echos of Luke Williams.

[jimbob]

East shouldn’t be anywhere near league 2…can’t believe he rested reed as we would have won that game at a canter with him starting….no wonder reed spat it at full time….hopefully this isn’t starting to go sour for garner but I personally feel he’s too safe and needs to put his bollocks on the line…3 games in a row now… just saying

[Batch]

I don't think East was that bad, at least I thought he looked good when the rest of the team did.

However he's no Louis Reed.

[Crozzer]

East shouldn’t be anywhere near league 2…can’t believe he rested reed as we would have won that game at a canter with him starting….no wonder reed spat it at full time….hopefully this isn’t starting to go sour for garner but I personally feel he’s too safe and needs to put his bollocks on the line…3 games in a row now… just saying

2 game ban for a red for dissent.

[jimbob]

He hides which is the last thing you need a CM to be doing

[jimbob]

2 game ban for a red for dissent.

Because he knows he should’ve been playing. Petulant but I’d feel the same if I was him irrespective of how childish it was.

[singingiiiffy]

I can’t remember the last proper save a goalkeeper has had to make at the county ground.

1 minute into tonight's game?
-------
we started brilliant, just like against rovers. High intensity passing and we created some good chances. Davison going off did change the game. we lost a focal point with Barry and mckirdy both being the runners

we really have to drop the 5-3-2/ 3-5-2 at home. it's perfect away. not at home. the centre backs generally have fuck all to do and it's a waste of a body. we need that extra man in the middle of the pitch.

if you screen grabbed the pitch at numerous times of the pitch the centre of the park has a massive hole in it. the front line are always trying to run off the shoulder.

let conroy play the away games.I think go with a 4-2-3-1. lyden and Reed the back two and then a 3 of mckirdy Williams and payne/Barry with Davison up top.

obrien and Cooper looked really good tonight. there were positives. the goals we are conceding are just frustrating at the moment, cross that misses everyone at rovers, corner and penalty. luck or whatever we aren't getting much at the moment but we aren't giving the opposition many chances and it can't keep going against us.

 

[theakston2k]

Ultimately this team has no organisation, no leadership and no discipline. That’s shown by the stupid red cards, constant gobbing off and sloppiness on the pitch. This should all come from the manager but the players know they can pretty much do what they want without consequence. The biggest problem is if you have only seen us play at home all you have seen is relegation fodder so that does put Garner in an uncomfortable position. It’s still all very Luke Williams for me, style over substance and his favourites get looked after.

[Jimmy HaveHave]

It won't be long before someone says wellens is without a job!

[Crozzer]

Because he knows he should’ve been playing. Petulant but I’d feel the same if I was him irrespective of how childish it was.

Thought he was being rested for Exeter, now rested for Scunthorpe United and The General.

[RobertT]

I bet East looks really good in training.  He has that look of a very competent ball player - however, he cannot impose himself on a game, much like some of the others, he can very easily drift out of the game.  I wouldn't call it hiding as such, it's not having that mental, competitive toughness.  It may come in time.  Reed is a bit more "give it to me", or will go looking, which makes him a better player of the two.

It's one of the more frustrating things watching us right now - I don't think we have any obviously rank players.  There isn't a Jason Drysdale taking up a wage on the left, or a Taylor Curran embarrassing everyone around him.  With a fair wind behind our backs (no, not the anti-Exeter wind tunnel) we look very good.  Anything starts to go wrong and it all becomes a bit kids football.

[singingiiiffy]

to add, in the modern day of heavy analysis why can't we seem to take a throw in? something so simple that we struggle with. and freekicks- we have height at the back, anything in the oppositions half let's cross it in instead of a 2 foot pass, pressured and back to the defence. reminds me of playing 5 aside on a small pitch where a freekick has no benefit.

I was angry at stevenage nil nil and said I wasn't going Saturday. then we scored 5 past Northampton. iv similar feelings to going back on Saturday!

[Outletred]

Garner needs to start taking some responsibility I’m afraid

3 home wins out of 13 games is dire and not play off form

We are now in February he has had 6 months to sort the home form out but we are no further forward

Why does he also persist in picking Gladwin? He just slows the game down all the time

Not sure Garner has much longer in a lot of fans opinions judging by what I heard in block 6 of the DRS tonight. Never seems to learn by his mistakes. The offering at home this season has been generally bloody awful