Our Player of the Season vote has been open since Monday. The winning player will secure the prestigious ‘Fraser Digby Tortoiseshell Comb Award’ when the result is announced on Friday 4th May 2012. Players eligible for the vote include only those squad members who have played in at least 10 games in all competitions. Medhi Kerrouche is ineligible as he played
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Many Swindon fans loathe them as much as substituting Alan Connell but short corners deserve their place in Town’s armoury, says Alex Cooke. We should blame Shaun Taylor. From the 1992/93 season onwards, when that slab of Devonian muscle piled in 13 goals, mostly off his Neanderthal brow, Swindon fans have expected – no demanded – that Town should score
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He’s wild, he’s exuberant, and he’s fantastic entertainment, but Paolo Di Canio is a more studied manager than his pitch-side persona reveals, says Alex Cooke. “The media portrayal of Paolo Di Canio is very different to the manager I’ve come across. The one I have experienced is very meticulous in his planning, very knowledgeable about every level of football from
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How Di Canio’s desire for width can leave Swindon outnumbered in central midfield, by Alex Cooke. “It’s 10% about the formation and 90% about the players. If you have the best ones and they do their jobs, then they can pretty much play any way you want them to.” Harry Redknapp might be one of Paolo Di Canio’s former managers
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He can play 50 passes in less than 90 minutes and knits defence and attack but lately illness has deprived Town of Simon Ferry in full flow, Alex Cooke looks at what we have been missing. “Less energy, more quality”. That was Paolo Di Canio’s opinion of what Simon Ferry brought from the bench to Swindon versus Shrewsbury on Tuesday.
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He fired Swindon to Wembley but Swindon’s number 17 has only scored 8 times this season from 30 appearances. But does Alan Connell offer more than goals? By Alex Cooke. Alan Connell is the perfect centre forward. He might not always look like one but if you read through the statistics behind the striker’s performance against Wigan it is hard
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Swindon’s wingers are always cutting in instead of crossing from the by-line, Alex Cooke looks at seven reasons why. ‘Why doesn’t Matt Ritchie go down the line?’ ‘What is Ritchie doing crossing from there?’ ‘Why won’t he pass?’ You can hear the questions in the stands, read them on the forums and scroll quickly past them on Twitter. For a player
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Gradually the mistakes are being erased. First it was Ibrahim Atiku, then Mattia Lanzano was asked to go, now, we wave goodbye to centre back, and disaster central, Alberto Comazzi, writes Alex Cooke. Comazzi wasn’t a bad signing, he was just the wrong signing for this decade, and this country. As Paolo Di Canio admitted the grizzled centre back always looked like
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Paolo Di Canio has changed him from a midfielder to a defender, but playing at the back has allowed McCormack to change the way Swindon play, writes Alex Cooke. It took an injury to get Alan McCormack’s Swindon Town career going: not an injury to him, but to Oliver Risser. For the Namibian had been deployed as an emergency centre
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Three goals, a dugout dust-up and the theatrical villainy of Jason Price: Swindon’s win against Morecambe, with goals from Jake Jervis, Raffa De Vita and Ronan Murray, sounds like excellent entertainment. In reality it was a disjointed and often disappointing game, writes Alex Cooke. Morecambe looked to be a side with a plan: a plan to tap the ball slowly
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The Washbag 