Swindon Town (H): Press Conference Notes

[The Joker]

Andy Scott Quotes:
“We should start from minute one. We can’t be a soft touch and give too many goals away. The goals we are giving away we are not even close to defending them. It is disgraceful.

They’ve got to take responsibility for it the two centre halves. We started off with the wind against us, squeeze the play, let our midfield players get close to their two, but our two centre halves want to drop off, make the game big, their front two get the ball to feet and our two central midfielders can’t get in touch with the game.

Their two midfielders ran the game because we sat too deep. The first seven minutes they played every ball over the top and it went through the middle to our keeper or for a goal kick.

Then all of a sudden we try and do something we haven’t done and the three goals were embarrassing.

The way we defended in the first half wasn’t good enough all round. You would like to think that the experienced players would be able to take responsibility and do something about it.

We knew the wind was swirly and that sometimes you have to get to half time nil nil and it isn’t going to be pretty and hard to get out of your half. But when we played it forward and held it up and created chances we did it in the right way.

But we thought we could start playing into midfield from deep and not be in touch with the game and it was 100 mph to start with. We defended on the edge of our box when the ball is on the half way line.

For me it really grates me because we work hard on defending then we come to a Saturday and it looks like we haven’t even thought about it.

I am fuming, absolutely fuming and if I could rip heads off I would do. We’ve been beaten by a side that we shouldn’t have been beaten by. We should have won that game. But we lost because we gave away three goals.

The third goal typified us. Mark Phillips didn’t even make an attempt to stop him and he had a free shot at goal. Nikki Bull has had three shots at him from three areas where he has no chance. He’s a lamb to the slaughter.

The first goal we were defending too deep and it has gone in to the front man and we haven’t gone with the runner and he has smashed it in.

The second goal we were defending too deep again and haven’t won the second ball and have just allowed him to slide it through and he scored again.

The third goal was just a massive long ball forward and if we get close to the ball and keep him away from our goal we can get men back. Mark Phillips gets nowhere near, dangles a leg, lets him come inside with absolutely no skill at all and gives him the whole goal. I could have scored that with my right foot.

It is depressing. We have worked so hard to get back in the game at 2-1 because we were in the ascendancy and if we had kept our shape, kept doing what we were doing and what got us back to 2-1 then we could have gone on to get at least a point and maybe even win the game.

But we get ourselves a foothold in the game and give a poxy goal away and it’s game over. It drives me mad.

We’ll have to do more work on defending. We might have to change the side. In the last three games, we’ve had a total of 11 shots at our goal and we’ve conceded six goals. We’re not allowing a lot of shots on our goal, but the ones that we are, are obvious goal scoring chances that we can’t deal with.

We are a soft touch and I’ve just said to the lads that sooner or later we’re not going to be allowed back into a game by a side and will get absolutely hammered.

Carl Cort was absolutely magnificent today and looked like he had a bit of an understanding with Charlie, but if you don’t give them the ball and are chasing the game like today we’ll have to score three or four goals to win the game.

That’s not us. We kept 21 clean sheets last year. Maybe this year they think they can do something different. That ain’t gonna happen. We’ve done exactly the same in training as we did last year.

But when it comes to a game we are a shadow of ourselves. It is either they don’t want to do it, or they can’t do it. If they can’t do it someone else will come in and do it and if they don’t want to do it, then equally so. They’ve got to buck up and liven up pretty quickly because Hartlepool on a Friday night ain’t gong to be pretty either.

If you defend on your own you are going to be put under pressure. Alan Bennett and Mark Phillips attributes are defending high up the pitch, winning headers and tackles, being involved, being a strong unit. A back four defends well as a unit. Individuals can’t defend against a team attacking them.

But we seem to think that is what we should do. It is not just Alan or Mark. As a team we are not organised when we are defending. We need players on the pitch to recognise what is going on and organise.

They can come in at half time and I’ll show them where they are going wrong and do great in the second half, but I don’t want to be chasing a game.

Their midfielder Ferry looked like he was a World Cup player. He could have played for any team in the world. But he never touched it in the second half because we were in touch with it, the back four squeezed on and allowed our midfield players to go on and we were higher up the pitch and got everyone on the ball in dangerous areas to create chances.

I think people want to go and play the way they want to rather than the way I want them to. If they continue with that attitude then there will be changes. We’ll have to see whether they buck their ideas up, whether I change it for Friday or not. But certainly our performances have got to change. If we are more solid we will win games in this league, no doubt.

Yes, Price and Wilson are away on international duty next weekend.

I thought Carl was outstanding. He showed we have missed someone to link the play. When we got it into his feet we caused them a lot of trouble. He has been a big miss for us and hopefully the partnership between him and Charlie can develop and defensively we can improve so we give them a chance to win a game rather than get back into it.

I’m disappointed because we threw away a chance to climb the league. Swindon are in the playoffs now. We’re a better side than them, but we’ve got to prove it. We’ve got to win games to prove we are better than them.

We’ve certainly got players who can do it. There will be dips in form and people who don’t get it right all the time and make mistakes and we accept that. I accept people making mistakes trying to do the right thing, but there were too many individual errors and people doing things they wanted to do.”