What are Swindon getting with Liam Kinsella?

Swindon Town captured their first permanent signing of the summer in the form of Liam Kinsella, so what will the 27-year-old add to the squad? Total Sport’s Joe Acklam looks at what fans can expect from their new midfielder.

The most obvious thing that Kinsella provides is experience, his 253 Football League appearances are more than Town’s present midfield options combined (Jake Cain, Dan Kemp, Saidou Khan, and George McEachran total 215 as a quartet).

Kinsella spoke himself about wanting to help those around him with the vast experience he possesses and be the “experienced head in there” to help prevent the situations which arose all too frequently last season from a team that lacked a leader in the middle of the park during the second half of the season.

He also spent much of the last two seasons playing under Michael Flynn, the man who has brought him to the County Ground, so what is he expecting from his new midfielder?

Flynn said: “He’s completely different to what we have got in midfield, he’s tenacious, he wins the ball back, and he is whole-hearted.

“I think he will be a crowd favourite because of the amount of works he puts in.

“I just thought that he gives us something else in midfield that we didn’t have before.”

This tenacity is blatantly obvious when looking at his stats from last season, ranking 11th in League Two for tackles (105) and 7th for interceptions (66), last season no Swindon player ranked higher than 70th in the division for either category, and he has been in the top ten for both categories in League Two for the past three seasons and even finished the 20/21 season top for tackles and second for interceptions.

He does this defensive work without being overly aggressive, only committing 1.1 fouls per 90 last season and he only received three yellow cards throughout the season.

By his own admission, he is more of a facilitator in possession, “I like to win the ball back as quick as possible and give it to the attacking players,” Kinsella said, “Help them get the ball forward and to do what they did today [against Plymouth] and score goals."

This again is borne out in the stats, as you can see on this radar, he ranks far higher within League Two for the defensive aspects of his game than in getting forward and he is generally safer with the ball at his feet.

A potential worry with the addition of Kinsella is that he stands at just 5”7 tall, adding to an existing problem in a Swindon midfield which doesn’t contain a single player taller than 5”10.

However, Walsall fan and YouTuber, Super Saddler Seb, does not foresee this being an issue with him succeeding at the County Ground.

“I wouldn’t be [worried about that]. He has decent heading ability, with his only goal last season being a header against Mansfield Town on News Years Day.

“Kinsella is a very intelligent footballer and a lot of his work off the ball goes unnoticed by fans. He will make sure he is in the right position to win a header or intercept and break up play. His desire and passion are unmatched.”

Seb’s biggest doubt for his success at Swindon was actually the way that Flynn deployed him in a very defensive double pivot during their time together at the Poundland Bescot Stadium.

He said: “Within the 352 system, Kinsella was primarily used as a defensive midfielder and played alongside Brandon Comley for the majority of Flynn’s tenure at Walsall, which didn’t work as they were both defensive midfielders.

“With us playing a 3 back, we didn’t necessarily need two holding midfielders and overall, I don’t believe Flynn got the best out of him as his system was so defensive.

“I think his best partnership was with Jack Earing, who was more of an attacking minded midfielder.

“There were some creditable performances under Flynn, but overall Kins benefits with more attacking minded midfielders next to him which leaves him to do the defensive side of the game.”

This does not look like it will be the case at Swindon, where on the basis of pre-season he is most likely to be playing alongside the more creative forces of McEachran and Kemp.

Overall, the two-time Walsall Player of the Season appears to be a shrewd signing of a player Flynn knows will be able to add the grit in midfield that was desperately lacking in the many late collapses which plagued Town last season.

Get ready to hear “Just sold my car to Liam Kinsella” a lot from the Town End and away ends next season as both Seb and Flynn expect him to be a firm favourite at Swindon.