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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Andrew Black and Matt Ritchie, have gone, Jed McCrory’s consortium are nearly here, but Paolo Di Canio is on the brink and we are no nearer the truth, believes Alex Cooke. Swindon Town Football Club have been taken over by a consortium fronted by Jed McCrory, subject to Football League approval. Matt Ritchie has been sold and Paolo Di Canio
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Swindon Town’s most natural finisher is on loan to Cheltenham, not because he is too old, but because Paolo Di Canio demands more than just goal-scoring. By Alex Cooke. Few players have left Swindon of late with a kind word from manager Paolo Di Canio. Not Paul Caddis, not Medhi Kerrouche and certainly not Leon Clarke. However, striker Paul Benson
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Ron Smith and Alex Cooke explain how a £13 million debt and Andrew Black’s search for new investment isn’t news but remains essential for the future of the League One side. If you are looking for the perfect summary of yesterday’s needless panic about Swindon Town’s financial position, it is here, courtesy of former chairman, Jeremy Wray. “The club doesn’t
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The Washbag 