Swindon v Stevenage: what went wrong?

Swindon Town had 70% possession against Stevenage and yet failed to register a single shot on target, so what went wrong for Scott Lindsey’s men? Total Sport’s Joe Acklam looks at why Swindon were so blunt at the Lamex Stadium.

Swindon were largely in control of the ball but struggled to find any real penetration against a well drilled Stevenage side who pounced on Swindon’s errors to take all three points.

Aside from a poor first five minutes and then a misplaced pass from Remeao Hutton to put Ben Gladwin under pressure and give up a second goal that killed any momentum, Swindon controlled the play against top-of-the-table ‘Boro.

Many pinpointed Town being too passive in their passing as the reason why they struggled to unpick the Stevenage lock, but it was actually the moments where Swindon tried to be more direct that cost them.

Since returning to the team following an injury to Marcel Lavinier against Sutton United, Hutton has attempted 41 crosses in five games and only picked out a Swindon player twice, according to Sofascore.

This is not a criticism of Hutton as a player as he drives Swindon up the field effectively and his aggressive style is a necessary balance to their other players, but it is a completion rate of less than 5% and it is demonstration that Swindon, in general, are ineffective crossing the ball.

Because it is unlikely that Swindon will win a high proportion of crosses due to the tallest member of their first choice front three being Luke Jephcott at five foot ten, teams are happy to cede space out wide and trust that they will deal with high balls into the box.

Against Stevenage, Town’s two full-backs tried a combined 12 crosses and none of them found a white shirt, and only Gladwin picked out a Swindon head in the entire game, there needed to be a greater understanding that they had to be smarter in how they attacked.

This means that Swindon need to be more creative about how they work chances from wide areas, Hutton’s two completed crosses came against Newport and both were from situations where the opposition were not set up to defend the cross.

One was a cross from deep that lead to a non-dangerous header from Jephcott and the other picked out Jacob Wakeling in space at the start of a second phase attack and he hit the side netting.

In the Stevenage match their best period of the game was after half-time up until the second goal as they were able to increase the tempo and move the ball quickly, the type of situation where Swindon are at their best, but too often it ended with a limp cross into the middle.

Following the second goal the players head’s dropped and so did the tempo, so there was no chance of them getting back into the game, but it was by not utilising their period of dominance that the game was truly lost.

In this screenshot Swindon have shifted the ball across the pitch quickly and forced Stevenage to retreat swiftly into their area and created space on the edge of the box.

Ronan Darcy has found space in a dangerous area but instead of looking to play the ball back, Hutton chooses to take a touch and cross only for it to be headed to safety, by frequently attempting to do this, Swindon became too predictable and easy to defend.

Scott Lindsey said of his side’s crossing: “Remeao [Hutton] has got himself in positions where has crossed from deep areas and we have worked with him this week about working the ball into what we call ‘crossing areas’.

“We don’t want to just shovel the ball towards Jephcott when there are three oak trees with him, we need to work it into places where we are sliding the ball across the face of goal for Jephcott to get on the end of or pulling one back from a tight angle, like Darcy’s goal against Grimsby.

“That is the area we need to improve on, for sure, and also on not crossing as many balls from the left.”

Counter intuitively to Swindon not creating enough chances, instead of looking to be direct they actually needed to be more patient and pick their moments to put the ball into the middle.

What Town need to try and do is force errors through either looking to get behind defences and find cut backs or move defenders deeper and create space on the edge of the box to utilise Darcy’s shooting.

These situations reduce Swindon’s height disadvantage in forward areas and answers questions posed by teams packing the penalty area as you force them to move when they don’t want to and that is when mistakes happen.