Swindon Town v Crewe Alexandra pre match chat and matchday thread

[singingiiiffy]

Lots of gloomy posts.

Today's performance was poor. But, it's to be expected, insomuch as our best player is away on WC duty, our defence is cobbled together and we have a set of inconsistent young players trying to make their way in the highest div they have played in.

I think we are a mid table L2 team. On a good day we can compete with most, but, there are the odd bad days and a number of frustrating ones.

Not sure that lambasting Lyndsey is the right call - It might be, but, others might only be able to get the same out of this group.

I'm sorry but too much of what happens is down to formation, square pegs round holes, in game management. Our budget and club expectations is above league 2 mid table and I'm not so sure our set up is.

Mistakes are being made that happened last season and our home form has reverted to type. Even before kick off I know what the game will be like.

I genuinely think that Clayton and Mcdonald injured panicked him big time and he is worried about the remaining strength of our cb pairings. To compensate he has gone 5 at the back. It's destroyed the midfield and attacking link up.

[Hyabb17]

Can this whole group be happy with 1 point from 2 games which we should be winning. Someone said we weren’t 5-3-2, genuinely disagree as we were. Most boring game I’ve watched in ages

[singingiiiffy]

Can this whole group be happy with 1 point from 2 games which we should be winning. Someone said we weren’t 5-3-2, genuinely disagree as we were. Most boring game I’ve watched in ages

Tbf it wasn't truely a 5-3-2 as we are a dominating home team possession wise so it ends up as 3-5-2 for the vast majority of the match. To think that would result in a 5 man midfield is quite unbelievable as there is very rarely anything in the middle of the park.

Darcy wanders over to Ellis, gladwin wanders over to Hutton. Khan comes and receives the pass from a static cb. Then we are seriously banking on a fantastic cross and goal.

We could and should have won that game BTW but the set up, tactics and one dimensional route to goal is completely unneeded and by and large ineffective in terms of goals. We one a lot of headers from the crosses put in. But it takes a fantastic header to beat a giant time wasting keeper. As shown

[Pericardinho]

Poor Ellis. Such a long servant but glaringly obvious he isn't good enough to be a starter if we're serious about promotion.

I have no sense of anticipation when he gets the ball. He either runs into traffic or his end product is poor.

Darcy. I just can't work him out. Is he good or not? because it took me 15 mins to even realise he was playing. What does he actually do? he's busy, floating around but largely toothless. Game seems to pass him by.

[flammableBen]

We were picking up wins not playing great a few weeks ago, side of a team which will get automatic... if we kept it up. It's around this time in the season where we should be starting to push on, players gelling, tactics working, etc. Get a run before Christmas and January doesn't look so duanting,

We've spent money, we are out of the cups, so no distractions.

I think I said it before, but it will be easier to justify calling for clem to spend money in January if it's building on a team pushing for an automatic than it is for one pushing for a play off lottery. There's a bit of leeway on building the club on prospects, but it's pointless unless we get out of l2.

Fucking Andy King got us to a play off in the league above with fuck all tactics and no money. Legend. RIP

[Jimmy Quinn]

Andy king was a great motivator who knew how to get the best out players.

[Swindon Please Win]

5 at the back doesn't work, it makes us too slow in the build up, I really hope that's the last we see of it.

[Legends-Lounge]

It's looking like it always does. A thing worth winning. My point was you can't just dismiss the play offs as "not good enough" when there's a chance of winning em

I see that, however, what I saw today suggests PO not within our reach. I’m pretty much a positive person regarding the Town until it’s mathematically impossible. So it’s still but fuck me not like yesterday it’s not.

[TheDukeOfBanbury]

Who for?

Lavinier.
Iandolo was offering nothing, just can’t cross a ball.

We were losing 1-0 against a shite team, the clock was ticking, we did nothing.

That was so frustrating. Just not sure this thing with Reid and why he doesn’t want to include him. In a midfield of 3 I am not sure if Darcy works either.

All about opinions however to not change that yesterday until the latter stages of the game was criminal.

[cdakev]

Taxi for Lyndsey. He's clearly not motivating the team, he has no tactics, can't see the obvious changes.

People keep telling me the squad is better than last year, it's not !

1 point in the last two home games is not acceptable. What is going on in training as it's not improving the team it's getting worse.

We all got very excited over one game away at Mansfield and we have been piss poor since.

[cdakev]

Blake-Tracey might be going back to Burton in January. That would be a big loss.

[DV]

Lavinier.
Iandolo was offering nothing, just can’t cross a ball.

We were losing 1-0 against a shite team, the clock was ticking, we did nothing.

That was so frustrating. Just not sure this thing with Reid and why he doesn’t want to include him. In a midfield of 3 I am not sure if Darcy works either.

All about opinions however to not change that yesterday until the latter stages of the game was criminal.

I’m not sure Lavinier would have offered anything wide left? He didn’t last week against Tranmere he’s a right back.

Whilst I agree Iandolo needed to be taken off - I still don’t think bringing on a right back to play left wing would have added anything at all to our play.

Same with the clamour for Reed. I just think an earlier introduction for Reed would have just been like for like because again our ball retention in midfield wasn’t really the issue yesterday.

I think RobT said it - we have depth but it’s depth of similar players. So we can go like for like easy enough but we can’t really change things up.

Case in point we finished that game without three centre backs (MacDonald, Clayton & Harries) yet with Baudry and Brennan we still looked ok, sure Crewe weren’t the most attacking of teams but how many other Swindon teams down the years could cope with 3 centre backs out?

I don’t think they make them anymore but we need a Chief / Iffy type up front. Someone physical and someone who can get their head on crosses. Hutton also needs to drill more crosses low and hard.

A lot has been made of going from 442 diamond to 352 but obviously Williams at the advanced point of the diamond is a loss - who else do you put there? Darcy? Could do I guess and then Khan, Reed & Gladwin as the others.

Almost feels like we’ve changed formation to shoe horn Iandolo is. I mean he could play left central side of a diamond? If we were insistent to put him in.

I appreciate yesterday is just one game and I know he’s not long back after a length lay off but he offered us absolutely nothing yesterday. Didn’t go outside his man once, didn’t put one decent cross in & didn’t attack the back post once when Hutton had the ball wide.

If anything - our tactical change yesterday should have been to stick FBT upfront, go 343 and either get it wide and try and cross it to FBT or go long and try and have Wakeling/Jephcott feed off of him.

[DV]

We were picking up wins not playing great a few weeks ago, side of a team which will get automatic... if we kept it up. It's around this time in the season where we should be starting to push on, players gelling, tactics working, etc. Get a run before Christmas and January doesn't look so duanting,

We've spent money, we are out of the cups, so no distractions.

I think I said it before, but it will be easier to justify calling for clem to spend money in January if it's building on a team pushing for an automatic than it is for one pushing for a play off lottery. There's a bit of leeway on building the club on prospects, but it's pointless unless we get out of l2.

Fucking Andy King got us to a play off in the league above with fuck all tactics and no money. Legend. RIP

Andy King also had two of the best strikers in the division that season.
Obviously it wasn’t all down to them but if we’d had Mooney & Parkin upfront yesterday we’d have smashed Crewe.

[molepar]

Blake-Tracey might be going back to Burton in January. That would be a big loss.

Where did you hear that? I am hopeful we will put a bid in.

[cdakev]

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