Swindon Town v Walsall pre match chat and matchday thread

[TheDukeOfBanbury]

It’s been done to death.
We aren’t playing Cotterill as a defensive / holding midfielder. He’s there to quarterback or be a deep lying player maker - which doesn’t change the point it’s an absolutely fucking stupid way to set up our midfield.

Everyone can see it apart from Kennedy - if he lines up the same again next game we might as well sack him & get Gav back in.

Ofoborh did the defensive / holding midfield role really well back end of last season - we were all chuffed he signed in the summer. Complete waste of a wage if we are going to play him as a #8.

It’s stupid.

Honestly after 3 games I’ve struggled to understand where any of them are playing.
Not sure about the shape or tactics other than to go long at every opportunity “hitting” Smith for flick ons.
So disjointed.

[4D]

Ah well, I've managed to last 2 games. Good luck Swindon see you in the conference.  At least I can save some cash going forwards.

[tans]

What haopened to you at the game?

[Cowley38]

Honestly after 3 games I’ve struggled to understand where any of them are playing.
Not sure about the shape or tactics other than to go long at every opportunity “hitting” Smith for flick ons.
So disjointed.

I struggled to see the shape as well

The midfield couldn't hold onto the ball, the Walsall midfield was just running past them.....


Was amazed that the majority of the starting X1 had virtually all of pre season together, they looked like they had never seen each other before....

The amount if times the ball was between 2 of them and they just looked at each other....

Have to wonder what goes on in the training sessions.

I feared for us in June , after the first 3 games it seems obvious we are in deep shite...

[theakston2k]

Honestly after 3 games I’ve struggled to understand where any of them are playing.
Not sure about the shape or tactics other than to go long at every opportunity “hitting” Smith for flick ons.
So disjointed.

Honestly I don’t get why you renewed or go, you clearly aren’t enjoying it. I haven’t renewed and I’m not regretting or missing it one bit, you soon get over it and find other things to do that there is some genuine chance of enjoying.

[Frigby Daser]

The amount if times the ball was between 2 of them and they just looked at each other....

Have to wonder what goes on in the training sessions.

Spot on. It happened again, and again, and again. Freckleton and King were the most guilty. King was positionally appalling, and seemed unable to pass 5 yards. They *all* appeared dazed and confused and passive. It was genuinely up there with the most inept performances you’ll ever see.

Edit: Yet Kennedy says there were good things to the from the game. We’re already into “manager speak”. There were no positives Mark. I find it incredible that a man that played as a winger and spent time at Man City as a coach as well as a player, has a strategy where the main attacking tactic involves playing high balls to strikers, presumably for knock downs, when the midfield is 30 yards away from them. You can watch shit systems with adequate players, and adequate systems with shit players, but yesterday was shit system and shit players, bought with our non existent budget, provided by our absent, shady owners. when many of us went in with hope for change.

And the crowd was up for it at the start. You got the sense everyone there was fully behind them. And almost immediately, it was apparent that we couldn’t string two passes together. It wasn’t “they’re a bit off the boil” bad, it was something much deeper than that. At least if we had an owner in this hemisphere we’d be able to vent at him. The absenteeism really doesn’t help.

[4D]

What haopened to you at the game?

Me? Drank to much, was disappointed with the way we played, had a verbal wirh the away fans and got told off by security. Left at half time. Already given up, everything about this club stinks.

[Dr Pierre Chang]

Frigby above aside, I’m amazed King hasn’t been highlighted more. Garbage at Chesterfield on the opening day and piss poor today - looks every inch a player who has spent the bulk of his career in non league.

It’s going to be a long season.

Me? Drank to much, was disappointed with the way we played, had a verbal wirh the away fans and got told off by security. Left at half time. Already given up, everything about this club stinks.

I thought it was you on the end of the ‘fatty what’s the score’ chant  

[TheDukeOfBanbury]

Honestly I don’t get why you renewed or go, you clearly aren’t enjoying it. I haven’t renewed and I’m not regretting or missing it one bit, you soon get over it and find other things to do that there is some genuine chance of enjoying.

If it was just the 90 minutes I think I would have got off the bus 10 years ago.
Nobody would have enjoyed that shambles yesterday. I broke a record mind I left after the 4th went in.

[RJack]

If it was just the 90 minutes I think I would have got off the bus 10 years ago.
Nobody would have enjoyed that shambles yesterday. I broke a record mind I left after the 4th went in.

This the pre match and sometimes post match meet up with mates on match day  adds to the experience for me.
As bad it was and it was bad we had a laugh yesterday mainly at the expense of trying to guess what the game plan was.

[Wobbly Bob]

Had to check back and yep that's the heaviest defeat in a home opener for any season in our history, including the Southern League days.

Football has evolved beyond just playing hopeful balls even in league 2.
It can win games but needs a high degree of understanding of where to be & what to do in certain situations.
Early days yet. We'll see.

[Jimmy Quinn]

.

[Nemo]

Not sure what I was expecting here but that was dreadful.

First goal, I just don't know what you can do about an experience Championship defender making such a basic fuck up. Despair and hope it's a one off, I guess.

Second one is bad defensive shape, but a decent cross.

Free kick for the third is a really good goal to be fair, but giving it away was pretty miserable between Sobowale and Freckleton (Clarke dives in, but probably has to after they've fucked it up)

Adomah's is a tough deflection.

The worry is how low on confidence our defenders look on the ball already - it's two games in! We keep brining in, on paper, good defenders and we keep making them utterly useless in short order.

[Cowley38]

Problem was looking at the bench yesterday there was no one there you could say could come on and make a difference...
They say they are looking for additional players

But this will once again probably be loans again as the moneys run out.

We've spent the money of a team of defenders who on that display cannot defend.

Its OK having players who can score upfront like Gkatzel ,Smith or Tshimanga if he comes in but if you haven't got a midfield who can supply decent ball then they won't score..

We had no one who got in a position to put in a decent cross for out 6ft 5 striker....

[UTR]

It’s been spoken about to death already but that midfield is so baffling and a real problem for 2 reasons:

1. I get they’re going for this QB style deeper midfielder but when you’ve got Ofoborh who’s a perfectly good sitting midfielder for this level, having to push up the pitch and play to traits he’s not strong at whilst our player sitting in front of the defence is struggling to cover defensively then it’s a pretty weird system. Bostock would have been a good option in that deeper role and I see why they went for him but at the moment, we’re not playing to any of our midfield players strengths. Please get Ofoborh in front of the defence and move Cotterill (who i don’t think we can fully judge until he’s playing in a more comfortable position but early signs aren’t great) further up if we’re contractually obliged to keep playing him but need reinforcements here.

2. 0 creativity. It stifles us, there’s no one getting on the end of Smiths knockdowns, and the midfielders who are receiving the ball higher up the pitch like Ofoborh just aren’t suited to it. It makes us so easy to defend against as they know to stick a man on Cotterill and each wing back and we’re out of ideas. I understand our primary tactic is (or should be) the wingbacks hammering in crosses but you need to worry teams from other areas centrally so the gaps appears for the wing backs to exploit or it’s an easy job to just mark them out of the game.


Then you look at the bench and wow it’s weak.