Match Thread

Even game I'd say but Swindon were that bit slicker with the ball. Going forward they always seemed to have options and follow up runners. With us it's just scrappy, Taylor isolated (although that improved somewhat after the half time formation change). The only time I really remember us threatening an equaliser was that moment of pinball in stoppage time.

We lack spark in the final third, hopefully that changes when Otis has got some games under his belt. Erm..... what's the prognosis for McAtee again?

Defence had an off day in the first half. Bound to happen at some point, onto Tuesday we go……

Let’s hope the Ryan Bennett story hasn’t unsettled them!😉

Quoted from chaos33

Not like you to overstate. Put it down to being really p1ssed off. You can’t say we didn’t turn up. We played a good team. We had chances and gave our all as usual.  We lost by the odd goal but could so easily have equalised late on.

No, think everyone's blowing smoke up Swindon's arses. They were below us in the table before today having played an extra match. The goals they scored resulted from awful defending on our part (Waterfall missing a header for the first, Crocombe bailing him out, nobody picking up the ball so they have another shot, Crocombe bailing them out again and then Efete going totally missing at right back leaving their striker free to tap home / Smith running under the ball instead of clearing it in the box for their second, letting their man in as a result who squared to an unmarked teammate for a tap in). Beside the opportunities gifted to them through our own poor play they created little and Crocombe otherwise had a quiet afternoon.

Going forward for the first 75-80 minutes we never constantly threatened which wasn't due to good defending from Swindon, but more due to terrible decision making and poor play from our attackers. The number of high balls we hung up today was absolutely ridiculous given the blustery conditions, and made it easy for their keeper and centre halves to defend. We also had the regular issue of looking clueless when we did break forward. Every time the ball went wide to Clifton, Kiernan and especially Efete they slowed attacks down by taking ponderous touches rather than playing quick incisive passes or early first time crosses. Khan and Glennon looked quite good for the first few minutes of the second half but then we seemed to revert to hoofing it into the wind until JMD came on and actually started to play some proper football on the deck.

The last ten minutes encapsulated the problems we've had in the box all season. We had at least three glorious chances and every single one was fired straight at their keeper because there doesn't seem to be anyone in the side capable of poaching goals and finishing clear cut chances clinically. So I'm standing by my original post, we chucked that game away, and didn't punish them when they went down to 10 men because we lack attacking intent (due to the players available in the squad, and Hurst's 'defend first, worry about creating chances later' approach to player selection which has worked well away but had meant we've struggled at home while some of our most effective attackers linger in the reserves or on the bench). McAtee getting back to fitness can't come soon enough for me, I'm getting very tired of these uninspired home performances.

Quoted from oochiad

Let’s hope the Ryan Bennett story hasn’t unsettled them!😉

I hope it has, would take him anyday over our two centrebacks given todays performance.