Scott Lindsey’s return trip to the County Ground couldn’t have been worse as he saw his Crawley Town side demolished by a superb Swindon Town performance.
Four goals from Jake Young, one from Dan Kemp and another from Tyreece Shade sunk the Red Devils as they scrambled for answers away from home. The dynamic duo of Kemp and Young continued their superb form, backed by the tireless efforts of Charlie Austin who occupied defenders allowing the pair the freedom to continue their impressive form since joining the club
Lindsey left Swindon for Crawley last season in an eyebrow raising move for the experienced coach opting to take on a relegation battle over remaining with the Robins. He guided them narrowly to safety at the expense of Hartlepool United and started the season in fantastic form despite the losses of even more experienced players. It’s telling that just days after selling Dom Telford (Wagmi United’s flagship signing) to Barrow the club would fail to put away their chances and be pulled apart by a magical Swindon Town as heads dropped.
Swindon continue to impress, following their damp opening fixture postponement and have scored eleven goals in the last two league fixtures alone. Michael Flynn had a slow start to the window targeting quality over speed of transaction which so far has proved to be the correct decision. There could still be one or two additions to the side to provide cover and depth to the squad before the transfer window slams shut, however few can question the impact the former Walsall boss’s acquisitions so far.
“Toothless performance, we set off reasonably well, created some chances didn’t put them away”
“Then we just showed nothing really throughout the afternoon, we were really poor today in possession. The way we pressed was not as energetic. Toothless”
“Disappointing obviously, we want to apologise to the fans for them to have to travel all this way to see that”
“It’s not fair”
The reporter then asked if the game would have been different had they put away their earlier chances.
“Yeah but it’s ifs buts and maybes. There are no ifs buts or maybes, you have to put them away”
“We can’t be sitting here saying we had chances to score and if we had scored it would have been a different game”
“I’m bored of hearing that, bored of hearing it. You’ve got to put your chances away”
“We haven’t. We were poor off the back of it.”
“We got what we deserved which was nothing and a good hiding.”
Returning to a club is always difficult, some use it as motivation to kick on and prove what they can do. However, on this occasion all we saw was the hollow husk of where the Crawley Town squad used to be. There were promising signs at the start of the window but now after this battering and lack of experienced heads it will be difficult to lift these young and inexperienced players and it could well result in the club sinking like a stone.
Swindon on the other hand have blown away their opposition. I firmly believed we would see the best version of the side in a couple of months when Flynn’s new signings have had time to bed in. However, it seems I was wrong this team at this moment of time are in superb form and the last thing I would want to see as an opposing manager is a visit from them on the fixture sheet coming up. It will be interesting to see how they do deal with adversity, if they are able to bounce back after a defeat but I wouldn’t be writing off a promotion push, based purely off these displays so far. It is a marathon, not a sprint but there is no denying this side look good out of the blocks
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