Alex Cooke looks at Saturday’s positional shift as Anton Rodgers was dropped, before Conor Thomas dropped back to make space for Brad Barry It wasn’t much of a surprise on Saturday when Conor Thomas took the place of Anton Rodgers in the team against Bury. However, it was a bit of a surprise where Thomas played. After all, he has
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Alex Cooke looks at how Jordan Turnbull and Fabien Robert shared the flank against Rochdale One of the criticisms throughout this season has been of players being used out of their natural positions: Henrik Ojamaa as a wingback, Nicky Ajose as a lone forward and, most frequently, Jordan Turnbull as a left back. But on Saturday one of the more
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Alex Cooke takes a quick look at Town’s use of a 4-4-2 for the second-half of Saturday’s match versus Peterborough United…
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Alex Cooke takes a quick look at both sides’ systems and shape for Sunday’s big game…
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Bernt V. Heiseldal digs deep into the numbers to prove if Swindon Town can win a top-two spot…
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Alex Cooke looks at how Swindon’s Bayern Munich-like dominance of the ball predicts big things This season Swindon have dominated the opposition and the ball. Town are top of the League One and top of the possession table. After 26 games their average possession has been a whopping 58.23%, almost five percentage points more than the Franchise (53.57%) Amazing isn’t
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A League One manager gives his tips on how to play against Mark Cooper’s men at the County Ground, as told to Alex Cooke Tip One On no account play your own game. Sure, you might be a big team full of big names with a big budget but that counts for nothing here – and it certainly didn’t for
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Alex Cooke looks at how Swindon’s 3-5-2 is shaping up. Suddenly 3-5-2 is fashionable. With Manchester United struggling, everyone is suddenly keen to talk about three at the back, and closer to home, to compare Mark Cooper’s use of it with Louis Van Gaal’s. But Cooper’s 3-5-2 is slightly different to the one used at Old Trafford, and for Holland – despite
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Alex Cooke looks back at a massive punt and a manager who didn’t changed his kick-off plan, despite years of repeated failure. You must remember it. It happened at every Swindon kick-off under Andy King, game after game after game: Sammy Igoe (or similar) tapped the ball slightly forward. Then, (often) Matt Hewlett swung the ball over the heads of
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After defeats against Walsall and Oldham, Swindon manager Mark Cooper needs to tighten up his new defensive system. By Alex Cooke. It was a simple, but brave, solution. Swindon were conceding too often and so manager Mark Cooper added an extra defender to the back four. However, the switch of systems to 352 from 433 seems to have created as
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The Washbag 