Preston North End v Swindon Town - Post Mortem

Having witnessed their team strive valiantly to reach the League 1 Play Off Final on Sunday 24th May 2015, Swindon Town fans had hoped to be celebrating promotion to the Championship come the final whistle that evening. Failing that, a competitive game with the Town making a good fist of it and losing to the odd goal would have allowed the Swindon fans to return home down the M4 with their heads held high, knowing that their team had given its all in the pursuit of promotion. The result, 4 - 0 to PNE, gave a worthy promotion to the northern club whilst the Robins' abysmal record at the "New" Wembley continued (Played 3 Lost 3) and the club, and fans were left to rue what might have been. Some time has now passed and perhaps, now emotions are not so raw, it is time to open up the League 1 Play Off Final cadaver, poke around the entrails and perform a post mortem on the event that saw the West Country club confined to the third tier of English football for one more season.  

The Tactics

The approach Lee Power, Chairman of Swindon Town FC, and Mark Cooper, the Manager, have towards their brand of football is to get the team playing attractive, entertaining and exciting football. The passing game, moving the ball from the back, through midfield towards the strikers up front has held the interest of all those who have witnessed the team playing this season and, for those of us who can remember (where has the time gone?) the teams of Ossie Ardiles and Glenn Hoddle in the early nineties, it has brought back memories of those good times when Swindon Town twice managed to reach the top tier of English football. 

However, the season has been long and what might have been surprising, new and difficult for opponents to contend with in the first few games in which the young team played, with analysis, teams were able to assess the Robins' tactics and adapt their own style of play to nullify Swindon's passing game. Playing with three at the back is a dangerous ploy when the opposition has a fast attack and leaves a team vulnerable to a counterattack, especially if the other team plays with three up front. The goal difference at the end of the season of +19 is decent enough, but the top three teams in League 1 had goal differences of +58 (Bristol City), +57 K Dons) and +39 (Preston North End) - Swindon Town may have scored 79 goals in the league competition, but the team let in 57, a testament to the vulnerability of the attacking football style adopted for the past season.

That being said, the team were full value for the money spent watching them and the view of some

(not mine) that they were relegation-fodder was ill-founded. Top of the league in January 2015, Swindon Town seemed destined for automatic promotion until it became mathematically impossible after the season nose-dived over Easter. However, a play off place was assured and this led Mark Cooper to decide to rest key players over the following weeks. Defeats followed and, to some, the feeling that Town had lost their momentum going into the play offs did not auger well, especially when it became clear that Nigel Clough's Sheffield United would be the opposition in the Play Off Semi Final. The away win was tight at 1 - 2, but the home leg produced a phenomenal 5 - 5 draw after Swindon had been leading 3 - 0 after only 18 minutes. The way Sheffield United was allowed to get back into the game and boss the home side once again highlighted the defensive frailties of the team.

Jermaine Beckford

Meanwhile, Preston North End had seen off Chesterfield with an aggregate score of 4 - 0 having won away 0 - 1 at the Proact Stadium and 3 - 0 at Deepdale. With the euphoria of getting to Wembley blinkering most Swindonians to the attacking prowess of the Final opposition, it shouldn't have passed the Swindon Town management team by that Jermaine Beckford, a loanee from Leicester City, had hit top form for the most important game of the season.

The Play Off Final

The day of the final saw thousands of Swindon Town fans descend on the home of English football, Wembley Stadium, a jewel set in a rancid sea of industrial estates, inadequate road transport links and car parking facilities. Optimism was high, but there was the nagging doubt in many a Moonraker's mind that the "real" Swindon Town would fail to turn up. And so it was to be.
A previous incumbent of the Swindon Town manager's hot seat would have been up 25 hours a day analysing the opposition ensuring that the team he put out would have had the best advantage of defeating them on the big day - Paolo Di Canio may have his faults, but doing his homework is not one of them! However, it would seem that this part of strategising passed Mark Cooper and his team by as Jermaine Beckford was allowed to roam the field and score at will. As for the players, with many of them coming to the end of their loan spell or contract, or having whimsical thoughts of moving on and playing for a "bigger" club, it could be argued that their hearts were not in it; defeat was inevitable before the team had even boarded the coach for London.

2015/16 Season

Mark Cooper

The team that saw so much success in League 1 in 2014/15 is no more. There are some familiar faces, but essentially, the Swindon Town squad of last season has been decimated and a new setup is being formulated as I write. Whether this season's team will be as adept at controlling the ball and finding the net as last year's crop of players remains to be seen. However, from his two seasons in charge of Swindon Town, Mark Cooper must learn to adopt his tactics the better to outwit and outplay the different opposition he is to meet each week. This was the major failure of last season and the biggest learning point for Cooper and the rest of the County Ground team from the debacle witnessed at Wembley on Sunday 24th May 2015.

The Most Exciting Title Race is...Not in the Premier League!

The world's attention may be focused on the two-horse race for the over-hyped, over-priced and under-English-represented Premier League, but a glance down the lower reaches of the English football pyramid will highlight the more exciting and competitive nature of football supported by the majority of fans in England. The race for the Championship title is bubbling along nicely, with the top five or six teams still in contention for automatic promotion. League 2 is more open still with seven or eight teams in with a shout of promotion halfway through the season. However, being a Swindon Town fan, I would like to focus on League 1 and assess the title race that sees, at Christmas, four clear contenders for the two automatic promotion places up for grabs at the end of the season.

The graph below shows the progress of the top four teams of League 1 since the start of the season - the dates denote the days when any particular match was played in the league and each of the four teams' position on that date after the matches were played.

Scrumpy the Robin (Bristol City)

Bristol City would appear to be the clear favourites, but with 45 points before the matches to be played on Sunday 28th December 2014, the club is only one point ahead of the three clubs below them in League 1. However, the Bristol "Robins" have held top spot since September and hung on to it tenaciously despite defeats to promotion rivals Swindon Town and Preston North End. 

Rockin' Robin (Swindon Town)

Sunday's games may well see a change at the top. with the leaders away to Gillingham, a team that has started to find a rich vein of form. Nothing short of a win will be good enough for City as MK Dons, who still have a game in hand to play, are at home to Walsall, who sit currently 15th in League 1 and who were beaten at home on Boxing Day 1 - 4 by Swindon Town. The Swindon "Robins" face Port Vale at home with the visitors to the County Ground 12th in the league. Preston North End go to Crewe to play a team who are the only other side to beat the leaders Bristol City (1 - 0 on 20.12.14) and who won on Boxing Day away to Oldham Athletic (1 - 2).

If the current top four teams are still in contention come the Easter fixtures, then Swindon Town's two games at that time (Good Friday and Easter Monday) could be pivotal to the decision on who finishes top of the league. On Friday 3rd April 2015, Swindon Town are home to MK Dons and on Monday 6th April, they face Bristol City at Ashton Gate. Those six points may prove crucial to the decision on which two teams are promoted automatically to the Championship and who lifts the trophy as League 1 Champions on the final day of the season proper on Sunday 3rd May 2015