Town Flier with Peter Mitchell

Peterborough 3 vs 1 Swindon Town

Most people would have probably rated this Swindon performance as “Disappointing” or “Should do better”.

Just as against Blackpool, the Town started brilliantly and were all over their hosts for the first half hour.

They harried the Posh defence, giving it no time on the ball, and forced the defenders into frequent errors.

There was another early Swindon goal when Paul Caddis pushed a super ball down the right wing for Jordan Stevens to run onto.

His inch perfect pass into the box found Jack Payne who calmly placed the ball home.

Swindon were passing well, keeping any pressure off their own defence, and must have created four or five golden opportunities in the first 25 minutes.

There was controversy when Caddis appeared to be blatantly pulled down near the six-yard box but the referee was having none of it.

Towards the end of the first period Peterborough began working their way back into the game, starting to dominate the midfield a bit more, so it was to be no surprise that it was a different story in the second half.

The Posh took over wholesale after the break, with the Town succumbing fairly easily to three goals. Siriki Dembele proved a pacey handful all afternoon and Swindon could do little to counter his threat.

Within three minutes of the restart Peterborough were level, when they ripped Swindon’s defence apart and Jonson Clark-Harris fired home.

Twenty minutes later he scored from the spot after Town conceded a penalty, that looked no stronger a case than the one they had been denied.

Skipper Mathieu Baudry had a game he will want to forget very quickly. First he was robbed in midfield and the resultant shot rebounded off the bar, with the follow up also striking the woodwork.

Then his nothing-header went straight to Dembele who put Ryan Broom away down the left. He left the Town defenders for dead and easily beat Matej Kovar at his near post.

Disappointingly Brett Pitman could easily have hit a hat-trick if it hadn’t been for such poor finishing on his part.

After the final whistle Richie Wellens appeared to be shown a red card, presumably for remonstrating about the two penalty situations.

It is so frustrating to see Swindon play so well in the first half of all their games this season, and then really go off the boil after the interval. I don’t think it’s a matter of match fitness either.

The Posh have acquired a number of good players since the last campaign – including former Town favourite Nathan Thompson – and they look a side that will be challenging all season.

It is a great compliment to the manager and his staff that they have managed to assemble such a potent looking midfield and forward line, playing such direct attractive football, when they lost their entire attack during the summer.

However the defence is another matter, and will continue to give us palpitations whenever the opposing attack puts us under any sort of sustained pressure.

Swindon have now scored no less than 8 goals in their four league games – but have picked the ball out of their net an identical number of times!

At this rate there will be almost 200 goals in their matches this season – what a bonanza of entertainment - that unfortunately the supporters will not be there to witness in person.

This was the first of no less than eight games in October and next Saturday, Swindon entertain AFC Wimbledon, followed by Sunderland, again at home, the following week.

The latter is a game that all of us would have dearly liked to have seen and there is little doubt that at least 12,000 would have been through the gates that day.