Team: Murphy, Suk-Young, Onuoha, Hill, Simpson, Diakite (Johnson),Jenas, Faurlin (Hitchcock), Wright-Phillips, Austin, Zamora (Sharif)
Subs Not Used: Green, Young, Ehmer, Henry
Attendance: 9,715 (including 1,684 away fans)
I suppose I should have known better than to have such a match for my first game of the season. After a good day with Steve Russell and Kerrins searching through newspaper archives for all things QPR, we were certainly brought back down to earth by the usual collection of players beaten by a team’s performance.
The good – I have never seen the ground and pitch looking so good and the sprinklers, set to music, were spectacular – the second-half performance of Mo Sharif – no extra time and risk of penalties. Not what you want with a long journey back to Essex. Moving swiftly on
The bad – all those awful and distracting pitch-side moving adverts, they should be stationary during the game – the train full of Arsenal and West Ham supporters for the journey back to Chelmsford. I kept a low profile !
We should of started with the EDS boys who have every incentive to perform as was shown by Mo Sharif. You can always bring on the “big guns” if that fails, but they have not disgraced themselves when they have appeared so I am sure they would have done far better than some of the first-half team. Bobby Zamora should either have the operation or retire – he was woeful.
Charlie Austin needs another goal to settle him down and is snatching at everything. He seems to be getting easily distracted by spats with various defenders at the moment. They will come.
Jermaine Jenas is not a commanding midfielder and we badly missed Barton and Henry. Sadly Ale Faurlin struggles to find the form that he had and did not look happy in an up and down performance and needing a protector alongside him.
Samba Diakite tried but after a brief run he usually ended up running down a blind alley and losing the ball. I had high hopes for him when he first appeared, but for whatever reason he has not fulfilled his potential.
Suk-Young Yun was starting to look good in pre-season, but he now seems to have gone backwards.
So a predictable result and one that left you feeling cheated.
ESSEXURs
In every game that we have played this season (not just Tuesday night), the evidence is overwhelming.we are NOT a goalscoring team. Too much huffing and puffing and in the final third/penalty area we are not good enough for an automatic promotion winning side.
In general though, other aspects are ok, but we will drop too many points if we don’t put the ball in the net more often. So far in the league you can say that we have got away with it. Will we score more than one goal at Leeds on Saturday ? Don’t hold your breath !
Will we ever score three or more goals in a match this season ? I will wait in anticipation but I reckon I may have to wait until hell freezes over. Let’s hope that Harry can put things right.
Kerrrins
For some time now there has been that sense of predictability concerning the outcome of our involvement in cup competitions. Despite a solid performance at Exeter in the previous round and after reading Rodney Marsh’s programme notes, I have to say that when Swindon opened the scoring on 38 minutes, I thought to myself “here we go again” ! And it had to be Nile Ranger who scored it !
Although Charlie Austin had opened his account for the R’s in the previous round, he really needs another goal. He did get the ball in the net in the second-half but unfortunately it was ruled offside.
Most of our build-up play was far too slow and we really needed to get the ball forward much quicker.
I thought that perhaps Max Ehmer and/or Tom Hitchcock would start, but Hitchcock did eventually get on to replace Ale Faurlin in the 89th minute. At least Mo Sharif had been introduced earlier and what an excellent performance it was from him. Our game did pick up in the second-half when he had replaced Bobby Zamora which was coupled with the welcome appearance of Andy Johnson.
The final nail in the coffin came when Clint Hill gave the ball away in added time. Alex Pritchard took the ball in his stride and he then weaved his way into the R’s penalty area to score Swindon’s second goal of the night.
Yet another generally inept cup performance against lower league opposition, but to end on a positive notewell done to Mo Sharif on a spirited 1st team debut.
Steve Russell