Swindon Town v Northampton Town

Town served up another pedestrian performance on Saturday, appropriately against the Cobblers.

Northampton are lying close to the bottom of League 2 but were equal to Swindon in most areas of the pitch. Under newly appointed manager Keith Curle, expect to see them start climbing quickly. Once again Phil Brown persevered with the pairing of Marc Richards and Elijah Adebayo, and once again our side lacked much bite upfront. A couple of clear cut chances were created in the first half and both James Dunne and Richards should have put one away to give Town a half time lead.

However, it didn’t happen, and the visitors took the initiative to open the scoring on the hour mark, when, after a short corner, Jon-Joe O’Toole finished well following a period of pressure on the Town defence.

Having gambled, and lost, on Jermaine McGlashan creating an impact, the manager quickly made a double substitution bringing on Keshi Anderson and young Scott Twine. This change seemed to add a deal more impetus and urgency to the attack, but still it was left, once again, to veteran Matt Taylor to pull Town out of the mire. In the 73rd minute he crashed home another wonderful 25 yard free-kick to level the scores. Lately Taylor has looked a bit leggy at times, but this performance was another great example of the enthusiasm and skill that he continues to bring to the party.

Certainly, the addition of Kyle Knoyle and Taylor as wing backs added that extra dimension missing at Crewe on Tuesday. Olly Lancashire was outstanding in defence and covered admirably for the missing, presumably injured, Sid Nelson.

Phil Brown got it right when he commented pre-match that it is more often the most consistent teams that get promoted out this division, not necessarily the best ones. And that is certainly Swindon’s problem – consistency. In the last month they have put in excellent performances against Morecambe and Yeovil, but have been at the other end of the spectrum against Bury, Crewe and, now, Northampton.

There doesn’t seem total harmony in the camp, judging from some forthright public comments made by Chairman Lee Power. He doesn’t understand why goalkeeper Lawrence Vigorous isn’t being played and is sympathetic to the young player’s frustration. Apparently Mr Power places far more importance in keeping a player that the club would like to sell, visible and in the shop-window, rather than keeping faith with a stopper who is playing well and who has, so far, done nothing to merit being dropped.

Next Saturday’s visit to second in the table Exeter City will be a tough one but the manager could do worse than to give Twine a start now that he seems back to full fitness.