Scott Lindsey's Swindon: what is the plan?

Scott Lindsey’s Swindon have had a tough start to the season, having still won only one match in all competitions and only finding the back of the net multiple times in one game. Total Sport’s Joe Acklam looks at how Town are trying to play this season.

Aside from the obvious control of possession which has been the way Swindon have tried to play in both of their seasons since returning to League Two, there is a clear idea of how they are attempting to attack.

Full-backs have been the real flashpoint of Lindsey’s time in charge, as an early shift from 352 to 433 changed the expectations of what was needed from that position.

When playing three at the back, the wing-backs were the ones trusted to provide width and Swindon would create passing patterns with them being the presence on the outside, but in a back four a lot more is expected of the full-backs.

The hope now is that Swindon create overloads in the right and left half spaces through interchanges of movement between the full-back, winger, and outside midfielder and this will create space outside for any of those three to move into.

This means that the two full-backs have to be comfortable playing inside as well as providing width, leading to the arrivals of Frazer Blake-Tracy and Marcel Lavinier who are both capable of performing this role.

The goal against Stockport came through a moment of chaos, as a deflection presented Tyrese Shade with more space than he is usually afforded, but the central positioning of the full-backs turned this into a goal due to the number of players in space on the edge of the box.

Against Gillingham, the plan of attack was the same, Swindon were looking to get rotations between Shade, Lavinier, and Gladwin on the right and Jonny Williams, Blake-Tracey, and Saidou Khan on the left and this create space on the outside to create chances.

In this instance, Lavinier drifts inside as Louis Reed plays the ball to Shade, giving space to the winger who is then able to cross into the box, but it gets cleared.

But conversely, this run around the outside from Blake-Tracy takes the defenders attention away from Darcy who can then come back inside and play the ball to Williams in space on the top of the box, but his turn takes allows the defenders to reset and he plays a tame ball out for goal kick.

Blatantly the strategy did not work, as Swindon failed to score past 10-man Gillingham, despite Williams, Blake-Tracy, and Luke Jephcott all having presentable chances to win the game.

The trouble Town had was that when the Gills had a man sent off, they defended with all nine outfielders within the width of the penalty area and less than 25-yards from goal, meaning space was at a premium particularly in the box where Swindon wanted to be getting the ball into.

Swindon were able to create space with these movements in the half-spaces, the issue became when they did this they lacked the decisiveness to use that space and too frequently slowed the game down again and allowed the defenders to get back into position.

Scott Lindsey said after his side’s 0-0 draw at Priestfield: “I thought there was more movement in the second half than the first and we created chances, we just couldn’t break them down.

“We felt that we could put the ball in the box and we would get chances from that, I think we got movement in those wide areas but there were opportunities to sling the ball in the box and we didn’t.”

The question then comes on how to convert good work out wide into goals, and the next evolution has to be getting the players on the side where the ball isn’t to be making third-man runs into the box and giving defenders in the middle more to think about.

Blake-Tracy showed his aerial dominance on several occasions on Saturday and if he and others can make clever runs into the box then they should be able to create more options for crosses and low balls and make up the wide players mind for them.