Town Flier with Peter Mitchell

Swindon Town 0 AFC Wimbledon 1

So where did it go wrong this week?

Well, it is no coincidence that this defeat came in a match where both wing backs, Paul Caddis and Rob Hunt were missing for the first league game this season.

They have contributed a lot to Swindon’s bursts down the flanks, and that was glaringly missing today. Young Jordan Stevens played as a make-shift full back but something was missing.

Swindon were largely restricted to coming through the middle, except where Diallang Jaiyesimi was involved.

They were pretty toothless and created very few good chances – with all their shots coming from distance.

Wimbledon were well organised, got lots of players back behind the ball, and their goalkeeper, Connal Trueman didn’t put a foot or hand wrong.

They didn’t venture forward much in the second period, being content to sit on their slender lead.

Jonathan Grounds and Mathieu Bawdry were competent at the back for Swindon, and in all fairness Matej Kovar had little to do in goal.

Last week I was concerned about the state of the defence, and that has turned out to be true, but for a different reason.

Defenders were conspicuous by their absence in attack!

After a continuous “Goalfest” at the County Ground to date, we were back to normality and a mundane game to go with it.

Town sparkled for the first ten minutes and were then largely out of it until the hour mark.

Although they pressed forward more in the last half hour the visitors were able to soak up the added pressure with ease.

A goal really only looked likely if it was to come from a contribution by Jaiyesimi - but he couldn’t do it all on his own.

Wimbledon’s winner came from Joe Piggott after 28 minutes, with their only shot on target.

Richie Wellens could fairly put most of the blame for this defeat well and truly on injuries incurred to his squad in the last week.

In an interview the manager bemoaned the fact that he needs several more players to bolster his squad and give him more options. The problem is 'where does it stop?'.

With a squad of around 26 already, and no match revenues coming in, there has to be a point where you live with what you have.

No lower league club can realistically expect to finance a squad of over thirty players.

If some of the existing players are now rated below League 1 standard then mistakes were made last season, with a lack of adequate insight and foresight.

Let’s hope the physios do their jobs well over the next week as, on Saturday, Sunderland are the visitors, and they are bound to put our defence to the test.

A few days ago Swindon lost former keeper, and locally born, Sam Burton at the grand age of 93, and this was marked by a minute’s applause before the Wimbledon game.

Very sadly only a handful of people were there to pay tribute.

I recall watching Sam in my fledgling days as a Robins fan and, although he was prone to the odd inexplicable error, he was a great servant to the club, who kept goal for around 15 years, making over 500 appearances.