After failing to win any of their first seven games across all competitions, Swindon Town got off the mark in emphatic style with a 4-0 rout of Newport County.

Mark Kennedy said that the display hadn’t been massively different to their usual performances despite the eye-catching scoreline, so how did they dismantle the Exiles?

The head coach is largely correct as the general shape and approach was similar to the last few games, when the arrival of Gavin Kilkenny has allowed Town to develop a more methodical approach rather than frequent long balls to Harry Smith, but their general play was much sharper.

The stats would actually show that Swindon completed far fewer passes than in recent games but that is because they didn’t need to. They were far more vertical in their play to transition quickly into dangerous areas, two goals came from set pieces and the other two saw Town win the ball back deep in their own half and score at the other end within 20 seconds. Swindon played more than 100 more passes against Barrow last week and had more than double the passes in the opposition’s half but never had the same degree of purpose with the ball. Town were decisive and had the space to play into.

Swindon have been looking to stretch the pitchSwindon have been looking to stretch the pitch (Image: IFollow)

Town’s shape was helping them to do this as up against Newport’s 352, they were able to push the wing-backs high, along with the mezzali Danny Butterworth and Joel Cotterill staying very wide. This gave them consistent two-v-ones against the Newport wing-backs, allowing them to work the space and get crosses into the box. Since the Notts County game, Swindon have set up with a diamond at the base, have a central midfielder and wing-back staying very wide on each side, and the two strikers staying high to pin back the defensive line. Gavin Kilkenny’s ability to play long passes means that despite there being large gaps between the midfielders, he could get the ball to them quickly and consistently.

 

 

A perfect example of this is for the second goal, Swindon won the ball back in their own half and Butterworth and George Cox were both outside Newport’s widest player, allowing them to double up and Cox could easily get the ball in the middle for Paul Glatzel to attack.

With Miguel Freckleton’s experience as a left-back, he provided even bigger overloads at times when he got space and Newport couldn’t handle the rotations out wide with their depleted back line.

Freckleton creates a three-v-twoFreckleton creates a three-v-two (Image: IFollow)

The other notable feature about the performance was how many bodies Swindon were getting into the box.

Strikers have often cut lonely figures in the Swindon team this season and prior to this game they hadn’t scored from inside the box. The two goals from set pieces are always going to have a swarm in the middle but for the two counter-attacking goals, the desire to be in position was noteworthy.

Swindon had players ready to attack crossesSwindon had players ready to attack crosses (Image: IFollow)

Cox spoke about the game plan being to exploit Newport’s weakness in defending crosses and Kennedy said he wanted to see players in the middle doing everything to get on the end of balls into the box, both were done to a tee.

As Glatzel heads into the net, both Kabongo Tshimanga and Cotterill have also made long runs to get into the middle and are there if Glatzel can’t get on the end of it.

Then for Cotterill’s goal, another transition, there are four bodies in the middle and then the Welsh youth international is the fifth on the scene to make the most of the ball falling in the box. Having struggled so often to get goals, the desire to put that right was palpable.