WHAT WE LEARNED: Melksham Town (0) Swindon Town (5)

Swindon Town made light work of Melksham Town, racking up a 5-0 win to claim their second victory of pre-season. Total Sport’s Joe Acklam looks at what lessons were learned during the friendly.

After passing up a number of presentable chances during the first half, Charlie Austin opened the scoring just after the half hour mark as he powered home a header from a Remeao Hutton cross, before Frazer Blake-Tracy doubled their advantage with a rasping drive from 20 yards out two minutes later.

Tomi Adeloye wasted no time getting off the mark as he turned home Harvey Fox’s low cross two minutes after the break and Tyrese Shade added a fourth as he wrongfooted the ‘keeper with a low shot.

Ricky Aguiar made it five in the 67th minute when he curled a fine shot into the corner from the edge of the area.

So, with Swindon’s preparation continuing, what did we learn about the team during their second pre-season friendly?

1. Flynn has shown us his strongest team.

Often it can be tough to figure out what a manager is thinking during pre-season, but with eight players starting both friendlies so far, we have been given a strong idea of what Michael Flynn thinks he has and also what he thinks he doesn’t. Tom Brewitt, Saidou Khan, and Charlie Austin came into the spine of the team, and I think that is quite telling as they came into the three positions we presume Flynn is looking to strengthen the most: being a centre-back, a holding midfielder, and another striker. Two players filling each of those roles whilst there has been stability elsewhere displays his thinking with his current squad.

2. Advanced wide centre-backs will be a big feature this season.

Marcel Lavinier and Blake-Tracy pushing very high and wide is immediately very obvious watching Swindon play. It has a distinctly Sheffield United under Chris Wilder feel as both play like wing backs when the ball is on their side and cover across when it is on the opposite side. With both players being full backs by trade it suits both very nicely and it enables Town to get both Hutton and Lavinier on the pitch at the same time. It does mean that any defender coming in will have to be a different profile to what many are expecting as all three centre-backs will have to cover a lot of ground.

3. Murphy Mahoney is very quick off his line.

The way Swindon are trying to play does create space in behind, but the reason behind Mahoney’s arrival was very clear. The QPR loanee is not the tallest, but he is very comfortable coming out of his goal early to sweep up and this was consistently thwarting any attempts at counter attacks from Melksham as the quality of the through ball had to be spot on to find a yellow shirt. Mahoney was almost completely untested as a goalkeeper during his time on the field bar one early stop, but he showed his utility as a sweeper.

4. Some encouraging displays from youth players.

Jaxon Brown, Anton Dworzak, Fox, and Sonny Hart all came on at half-time and showed the quality they possess. Town looked happy to play through Brown at the base of midfield and he showed both an ability to dictate play and to carry the ball up the field. Hart came on and looked happy to get forwards from the outside centre-back role and also kept the ball nicely. Fox and Dworzak were more muted in their displays as Swindon looked to attack more through the middle, but Fox laid on the third goal and looked lively when he had space and Dworzak retained possession well in a less familiar wing back role.

5. Jordan Moore-Taylor displayed competency but was untested.

Finding out about the trialists is a big part of pre-season, but with just Lewis Ward and Moore-Taylor playing for contracts, it is only the centre-back of which Swindon fans have limited knowledge. Melksham never really troubled Swindon at any point throughout the 90 minutes, and so the former Forest Green Rovers defender saw limited action going back towards his own goal. He did at times show a physicality that Flynn will be looking to add to his back line and looked generally comfortable on the ball. It would be difficult to make a decision on him based on a game like this.