Alex Cooke has decided to have some calm down time, why don’t you..? You are on a beach, a beautiful sunny beach. The warm sea laps gently at your toes. The drink in your hand is perfectly chilled. All you can hear are the calls of birds singing in the shady trees. Breathe in. Hold it. And breathe out. There.
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From halving the wage bill, releasing Simon Ferry and giving deals to five scholars, Jed McCory’s Swindon board are keen on building a younger, cheaper squad, but outside forces are also pushing every Football League club that way, says @STFConly. We all know now the years of spending at Swindon are over. Regardless of which figure you take, from BBC
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Alex Cooke looks at the hair, the pants and the departure of Swindon Town’s long-serving player, who was told he would be released on Thursday. Swindon crowds have their favourites. They love down-the-line wingers, they love blood-and-thunder triers, they love goalscorers. Simon Ferry was none of these things and yet, there are few in recent times to receive such universal
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Alex Cooke looks at how the two sides might shape up for the home leg of Saturday’s play-off match. Under manager Uwe Rosler, Brentford have become a compact team who play controlled, calm, progressive football. They like to squeeze play into a narrow band in which their impressively defined shape makes them stifling to play against and efficient, if a
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Alex Cooke gives us a quick run-down of Kevin MacDonald’s adjustments to Swindon’s set up. Swindon 3 v Stevenage 0 wasn’t a game which swung on a tactical innovation or an adjustment in formation, Town were mostly the superior team, individually and numerically. And although Stevenage manager Graham Westley switched systems time and again, adjusting his increasingly brutal and isolated
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Paolo Di Canio kept to a 442, but Swindon’s new boss likes an extra man in the middle, Alex Cooke looks at the reasons for the shift. Kevin MacDonald has made the move to 4141 for one simple reason: possession. He wants to play passing football, he wants to play winning football, and he needs to get the best out
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Alex Cooke looks at the tactics used against Walsall and how far Kevin MacDonald has to go to change how Town play. “I didn’t play well, I don’t know why – I just didn’t.” At first Simon Ferry’s post-Walsall protestations sound odd. After all, it was obvious to most people in the County Ground that his new right wing position,
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After scoring twice at Tranmere and impressing against Preston, the winger is finally stepping out of Matt Ritchie’s shadow. By Alex Cooke Gary Roberts hasn’t so far lived up to Town fans’ expectations, or his big wages. Paolo Di Canio once angrily accused him of playing ‘tippy- tappy football’ and some Swindon fans have said much worse. Usually at high
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Alex Cooke remembers a soggy, nasty night in ‘Nam when everyone saw red and our 24th entry into the Swindon Town Hall of Shame. Sometimes even the inevitable doesn’t happen – it should but it doesn’t. The sacking of former Luton club shop manager Andy King after the defeat at Cheltenham in September 2002 seemed to be one of those
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Alex Cooke sees Andy Monkhouse deny Swindon a deserved win, and top spot, with an equaliser for a determined, if defensive, Hartlepool United side. Swindon Town will have to wait – wait for Jed McCory’s takeover to be completed – and wait to go top of League One after poor finishing let yet another former player steal a draw in
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The Washbag 