A trip to deepest Wiltshire beckons, as we continue our inexorable sleepwalk towards The National League (and beyond?). The League 2 table as illustrated on the BBC website makes grim reading, as we are the only club whose most recent 5 games are recorded as “LLLLL”. Swindon Town (known as “The Moonrakers” according to my reference) are currently comfortably placed in the play-off zone, and will no doubt be keen to maintain or improve that position.
There are a few connections between the two clubs in terms of past personnel … on the management side Dave Mackay was their player/manager (1971-72) before coming to us, and players who have featured for both sides include Dave Bamber, Sam Parkin, Willie Penman, Fitzroy Simpson and Dave Syrett. Current form in League 2 for Swindon Town looks like this:-
Sep 28 Newport County (H) Lost 0-2
Oct 5 Bradford City (A) Lost 2-1
Oct 12 Plymouth Argyle (H) Drew 1-1
Oct 19 Crewe Alexandra (A) Lost 3-1
Oct 22 Stevenaged (H) Won 1-0
Oct 26 Crawley (A) Won 0-4
It should be noted that Swindon Town’s Eoin Doyle is the leading individual scorer in League 2 so far this season. It’s a bit of a worry that he has scored more goals (13) than the entire Walsall team (11).
There is still no point in prophesying the outcome of Darrell Clarke’s thoughts on which Walsall XI will be seen on the pitch. It’s also tricky trying to work out which players will even be available for selection, as so little information on the state of injuries is divulged. The good news is that KoryRoberts has shown himself fit and capable of handling competitive League 2 football, and it’s possible that Caolan Lavery might make an appearance - but in reality, who knows?
Prediction … if we can come away from Swindon with a point, it will be quite an achievement. The problem is that a goal-less draw seems out of the question, and anything involving more than that means that we have to score, and that also seems highly improbable. However, in a really rose-tinted frame of mind let’s go for a 1-1 result, with the bearded wonder notching a long range screamer!!
2-1 to the good guys, the fight back starts here. How many Saddlers fans in attendance? Swindon always a good day out and their fans are sure to make a good racket.
Was going to go to this with my lad… But i don’t feel like taking him to watch his team get slaughtered with no quality on show apart from the home team and see his hopes washed away yet again.
Really sad that he like most of us have lost that hope and excitement that we had when Clarke and pomlett took the reigns at the start of the season. Another defeat looks very very likely.
Not sure they’ll be much optimism in this thread pre-match, and probably less post match. We could have beaten Mansfield last week, but expecting Swindon to be much better than them, and certainly a different prospect from our last non-performance away gainst Oldham.
Anyway, prefer to just remember the last time we visited the County Ground in League Two. What a day that was, not that I remember much.
Sure they’ll be plenty of parking available at the Air Balloon tomorrow.
This is a game where that ‘Sunderland 0-3’ spirit lives on in some minds, everyone knows we are heading for a massive defeat, but hope that things might, just might, turn round on Saturday…
They won’t.
Darlington is the important game, lose this one and DC’s position will be untenable, Pomlett will lose FA Cup revenue, and most of our fans will just stop going to matches unless there is a change.
Incidentally was in a bookies yesterday and noted the odds for a Swindon win by 4 or more clear goals…10/11!!!
Just shows how low our esteem has dropped, relegation fodder with little hope. Sad times indeed.
