Ollie's Swindon

[gazan]

So Ian Holloway brings his personality, maybe his wife's sage and a decent football playing team. The Alex usually like playing against other footballing sides so the pundits are all expecting a classic game full of goals. So.....boring 0-0 (carrying on from last season). Hopefully last season's affairs bear no relation to this season's game.
More of the same (as the 4 we won) please. High pressure, quick attacking and rapid movement of the ball. Bear in mind that Swindon like to penetrate through the middle, a place we are vulnerable without the ball. Also Swindon have just signed Olly Palmer, so maybe they'll be crossing for him as well, so those crosses need preventing.
Swindon's defence is seemingly not equal to the team's offensive qualities so there are possibilities for our quick and skilfull forwards.
I'm going to take a chance and go for a similar scenario to what I predicted (wrongly!!!) last week. I'm going for 3-2.

[Harlzed]

I?m guessing Palmer will be on the bench but not too concerned about him, his goal scoring record isn?t all that and he?s 33, hopefully Mickey has the measure of him. I agree on it being a good footballing game and no one is coming close to us at the moment in that respect so 2-0 for me.

[Harlzed]

Nothing was really working today, more down to the fact that they had us worked out and our response was to revert to a style of play more like last season. Even so, we played one of the best squads in the league and it could have been closer if things had gone our way a bit more. I?ve said it a few times, if we want to be competing at the top of this league it won?t be with Booth in goal, poor kicking and unnecessary errors in the last two home games.

[jimmyboldon]

Nothing was really working today, more down to the fact that they had us worked out and our response was to revert to a style of play more like last season. Even so, we played one of the best squads in the league and it could have been closer if things had gone our way a bit more. I?ve said it a few times, if we want to be competing at the top of this league it won?t be with Booth in goal, poor kicking and unnecessary errors in the last two home games.

Agree. Second best all over the pitch. But, a wicked deflection and a stupid keeper error (again!) didn’t help. There’s was a few instances where things nearly fell for us in the box, but overall we were poor.

[gazan]

Clearly the Alex are not early risers! Yes, there were shades of last season in that performance. A lot of straight long balls wasting March's energy. Unfortunately, Swindon exposed our frailties. We've been weak through the middle when not having the ball all season but noone has exploited it before. Swindon always seemed to have 2 spare players in the middle. They were good on the ball, were mobile all over the pitch and generally able to find each other even under intense pressure. On the other hand, the Alex were slow and ponderous at times and the level of passing was really poor. Overall they looked off the pace and were always one step behind.
This is the first bad game. We lost last week but were three strikes of the woodwork and a glaring miss from achieving a better result. Is this a blip or have we been found out?
The worrying thing for me is that we don't occupy that space in front and haven't got the players to fill it unless he plays Golding out of his favoured position and plays a 4-1-4-1 or 4-4-2.

[jimmyboldon]

Clearly the Alex are not early risers! Yes, there were shades of last season in that performance. A lot of straight long balls wasting March's energy. Unfortunately, Swindon exposed our frailties. We've been weak through the middle when not having the ball all season but noone has exploited it before. Swindon always seemed to have 2 spare players in the middle. They were good on the ball, were mobile all over the pitch and generally able to find each other even under intense pressure. On the other hand, the Alex were slow and ponderous at times and the level of passing was really poor. Overall they looked off the pace and were always one step behind.
This is the first bad game. We lost last week but were three strikes of the woodwork and a glaring miss from achieving a better result. Is this a blip or have we been found out?
The worrying thing for me is that we don't occupy that space in front and haven't got the players to fill it unless he plays Golding out of his favoured position and plays a 4-1-4-1 or 4-4-2.

Powell and Lunt were too far apart. Lunt forward and Powell deep, so giving them the extra 1/2 players in the midfield. And yes, they found their men very easily.
Powell is a shadow of the player from last season… or is he?
Did we really have enough evidence last season before he was injured? For me, the jury was out well before his injury.

[ShropshireAlex]

Powell and Lunt were too far apart. Lunt forward and Powell deep, so giving them the extra 1/2 players in the midfield. And yes, they found their men very easily.
Powell is a shadow of the player from last season? or is he?
Did we really have enough evidence last season before he was injured? For me, the jury was out well before his injury.

Lunt's supposed to be playing in front of Sanders and Powell/Thomas, but Powell seems to have lost it completely. Pace I can understand, partly why he's the alternative to Thomas not a more forward play maker, but at times he seems to have lost his football brain too. It's so sad, not a shadow of last season, he never really got back his form then from when he was so good this time 2 years ago, but hoped with a pre-season he'd be OK this year. Just seems to have lost it though. The ht subs were clearly for form in his case, tactical in Billington's.

[gazan]

Interesting contrast of outlooks. Demetriou thinks the team need to use Tuesday to work things out and get things right BUT Lee Bell sees it as a chance to make 11 changes. I know which attitude I prefer. Also, if LB is not bothering putting out a competitive team then I'm not bothering to travel to Crewe for the game.

[MikeSB]

The keeper should have been subbed immediately after the second goal. We should not be asking young lads with no experience to play in goal. They knew they needed a keeper since May and did nothing to get one. Swindon were 100 times better than us on the day and we looked like a relegation team. I suspect the bubble has burst. The crowd numbers were terrible considering considering we were top of the table. I think we need a new CH as the current one has passed it based on the highlights. I'm glad I am not paying to watch this stuff live. We looked terrible imo. And please do not mention a GK coach based on all the mistakes we see. Get rid of all the coaches and just have one manager. No wonder we have 2000 views here and about two or three posting. That should tell us something!

[lukcour]

Interesting contrast of outlooks. Demetriou thinks the team need to use Tuesday to work things out and get things right BUT Lee Bell sees it as a chance to make 11 changes. I know which attitude I prefer. Also, if LB is not bothering putting out a competitive team then I'm not bothering to travel to Crewe for the game.

Re the Tuesday game, yes in theory I agree with Demetriou, and am completely against fielding weak teams for cup game. But I also believe our Captains plan would not work while RD is assistant manager. He was the one that was in control for the Swindon game, also the same position for our dreadul second half to last seasons disaster. I will explain further in another post.

I believe that a number of our players are verging on rebellion with our managements tactics. First in the Gillingham game where a lot of our new players body language was all wrong as they were confused by the negative approach. In that same game all of our subs following instructions produced zero impact on a game we deserved to lose. Now it would appear that our Captain is not a happy man. Then we come to the Swindon game where it seemed RD was making all the decisions and to say they were shot is putting it mildly. We were slaughtered.

For me a new assistant manager from one of our multitude of coaches should be selected. If this change is not made I find it difficult to see any improvement.

[MikeSB]

Re the Tuesday game, yes in theory I agree with Demetriou, and am completely against fielding weak teams for cup game. But I also believe our Captains plan would not work while RD is assistant manager. He was the one that was in control for the Swindon game, also the same position for our dreadul second half to last seasons disaster. I will explain further in another post.

I believe that a number of our players are verging on rebellion with our managements tactics. First in the Gillingham game where a lot of our new players body language was all wrong as they were confused by the negative approach. In that same game all of our subs following instructions produced zero impact on a game we deserved to lose. Now it would appear that our Captain is not a happy man. Then we come to the Swindon game where it seemed RD was making all the decisions and to say they were shot is putting it mildly. We were slaughtered.

For me a new assistant manager from one of our multitude of coaches should be selected. If this change is not made I find it difficult to see any improvement.

I think you are right my friend as the team seemed out of sorts compared with the first 4 games and wonder if the they have been told to play differently as we had hardly any shots on goal yesterday and you are right in that Swindon could not believe it was so easy. The GK has to be changed as he made exactly the same error in a previous game and having a GK coach to me is tantamount to sheer incompetence by the Chairman by having such positions at the club when we need the money to go on players and not coaches.

[MikeSB]

Go and look at the number of coaches we have by looking at them all on the bench in the Stockport away game. To me its embarrassing to have so many NON footballers controlling the team.

[MikeSB]

Go and look at the number of coaches we have by looking at them all on the bench in the Stockport away game. (First few seconds as the teams come out) To me its embarrassing to have so many NON footballers controlling the team.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gm1A7tmTcEQ

How much money are they all costing the club when all we need is ONE manager!

[lukcour]

I do agree that Tom Booth made a silly mistake and gifted a goal to Swindon, but i t is so easy to blame the goalie when your team is being totally outplayed because of our managers bizarre tactics.

Before laying in to TB did any of you bother to check his stats for our first 4 games. Goals conceded 2 (TWO) and one of those was a penalty. During those 4 games his reading of each game was so good that he was always in the right place to make simple saves.

Complete unjustified criticism.

[jimmyboldon]

I do agree that Tom Booth made a silly mistake and gifted a goal to Swindon, but i t is so easy to blame the goalie when your team is being totally outplayed because of our managers bizarre tactics.

Before laying in to TB did any of you bother to check his stats for our first 4 games. Goals conceded 2 (TWO) and one of those was a penalty. During those 4 games his reading of each game was so good that he was always in the right place to make simple saves.

Complete unjustified criticism.

Totally agree.
Sub the keeper after the second goal! What absolute rubbish.
“Did any of you check the stats?” Unless I’ve missed something, it’s only Mike who’s calling for him to be dropped.