As disappointing as it was to lose a game we should have won, there were a lot of positives to take from today. We more than matched one of the promotion favourites away from home with eleven, and for a period ten, men and some of our attacking football was sublime again.
In the first half Swindon's defence could not deal with the pace, skill and movement of Norwood, Jennings and Smith and we continued to make chances after the red card. However, the second period was basically a backs-to-the-wall job as the ten men tired and while Swindon were by no means scintillating, there was an air of inevitability about the result in the end as we should just could not press the ball and get up the pitch. That said, I thought our opponents were the best team we had played so far and Doughty looked a good player for them in midfield.
Individually, the three attacking players I mentioned were brilliant and Cole also played well in the first half, helping to set up the second goal. However, when we switched to 441 he became isolated and was pretty ineffective. Elsewhere, despite the goals conceded, I thought McNulty, Ellis and Monthe were absolutely immense at the back: I lost count of the number of headers the two centre halves won and Monthe had their right winger in his pocket. On the negative, Caprice struggled badly. He got skinned on several occasions by Adebayo, giving his man too much space and naively letting him run inside on to his right foot, notably for their first goal. Of the subs, Gilmour did OK in difficult circumstance but is not good enough to start in place of Harris in my view, and DMH was industrious but did not get much change out of Matt Taylor.
Another entertaining game and superb support again from the SWA. Two very important home games coming up, and we need at least three points from them.