COLUMN: The structure of Swindon Town

Swindon Town's recent poor form, which culminated in the loss against Bolton Wanderers last Saturday, has been the catalyst for the latest inspection on the current structure of the club.

The 1-0 defeat to the Trotters means that Swindon have won just one of their last eight matches in the league while simultaneously losing their last four home domestic matches against Bury, Bristol Rovers, Northampton, and now of course, Bolton.

Seven points from a possible 12 in the early stage of the season did its bit, albeit briefly, to lift spirits around the County Ground after a turbulent summer for its supporters that saw star striker Nicky Ajose depart the club for League One rivals Charlton Athletic.

Ajose's 24 goals without question kept Town in the third tier last year and a lack of suitable replacement in the transfer window just gone understandably had Swindon supporters sweating and shouting, especially in hindsight as Jon Obika, Nathan Delfouneso, Luke Norris and now loaned out Jermaine Hylton have just three goals between them in all competitions.

Despite the form, Town's squad does not seem to resemble one that is bottom four fodder, but it is one that has to do a constant replacement job when star assets are sold or return to their parent clubs at the end of a loan. Wes Foderingham, Jack Stephens, Massimo Luongo, Louis Thompson, Ben Gladwin, Nathan Byrne, Andy Williams and Ajose have all departed the County Ground for one reason or another in the last two years alone.

From the moment he stepped through the doors at the County Ground, Power has outlined the club needs to become a sustainable model that makes money from selling off key players, which has led to penny-pinching Power accusations, especially when big-money signings are not aquired to replace them.

However, it is worth noting the likes of Byrne and Luongo were not considered good enough by Tottenham and Swindon moulded them into better players while Gladwin and Yaser Kasim were plucked from non-league and became crucial to Town success. Swindon also sold key men such as Paul Caddis, Simon Cox, Charlie Austin, Matt Ritchie et al, way before Power came along.

In that sense, buying low and selling high (ish, in some cases) is perfectly fine. You would be hard-pressed to find a club below the Premier League who can keep their star players year-on-year - even teams in European competition IE Southampton consistently find themselves dipping into the transfer market.

However, what is unfeasible and short-sighted is having an entire squad built for profit (only four men in the Swindon squad are above the age of 25 - and they are all 26), because with that comes players that do not cut the mustard. 

One of the biggest bugbears at SN1 is the style of play itself.

The hipster-friendly 3-5-2 is both fashionable with overlapping wing-backs and neat passing play but unfashionable in League One with most teams preferring the 'proper' 4-4-2 or the 21st Century's go-to formation, the 4-2-3-1.

When it is executed properly, it is truly a sight to behold and, more often than not, Swindon bully the opposition into submission and better strikers would score more goals, but on the flipside of that when the wing-backs bomb forward, Town regularly get punished on the counter attack, or, failing that, a suicidal pass by a defender ends up in lost possession which tend to end in opposition chances and, crucially, conceded goals.

The previously mentioned record of one win from the last eight has quite rightly called into question whether this style is the best way to go (Total Sport asked Williams himself about that recently), and, given he is manager it is common consensus he is head honcho when it comes to club style and therefore he should be sacked given bad results, but the current style is regimented in the system.

A sacking of Williams though would only lead to another manager who prefers to 'play football' (the worst cliche in the sport). A complete change in philosophy of hiring a better defensive coach, or one who will 'show passion', will also take a lot of time to implement given the young squad which, by assosciation, are not yet experienced enough to be disciplined in defending.

Add to that the ever-increasing theme of Premier League reserve teams, where alot of Town's talent comes from, insist their defenders become more than someone who is a threat in the air which has led to an increase in ball-playing centre halves, but that is another column in itself.

So what do you do? The chairman shows no sign of calling it a day, the manager does not seem to be the problem and the players are just players - they cannot be blamed for not having much of a career behind them and then being chucked all in together.

The Swindon Town model. It may be sustainable, it may be suicidal, but, for better or worse, it is staying.