Swindon promotion hope to relegation woe

‘‘Don’t worry’’ I said to my mate after the 1-0 defeat to Millwall at Wembley, ‘‘there is next season, we will come back stronger.’’

There hasn’t been a worst prediction of the future in football and it continues to haunt my mind at the end of every defeat during this miserable run.

We all know how we felt after that defeat in May butyet there was a sense of it being Millwall’s day and next year it should be ours. So, it frustrates us all the more to see where we currently lie.

We have heard all the excuses this season from ‘we haven’t replaced Greer, Paynter and Ward’ too ‘Does Wilson even know his first 11?’ and the classic of ‘we just aren’t as good’ and that’s the simple truth. We aren’t as good as last season and with that achievement it’s making this run look a lot worse than if we had just had a season of mid table obscurity before it.

It now stands at 10 games without a win and so where are the faults, the problems and what’s the way out of this mess?

A first eleven

Last season, I could name you the starting eleven every week. It was so consistent that I’ll name it again: Lucas, Amankwaah (Darby), Cuthbert, Greer, Sheehan,McGovern, Douglas, Ferry, Ward, Paynter, Austin.

You look at that and see partnerships along with a real team. Amankwaah and McGovern’s link up was a joy to watch, Paynter and Austin being one of the most successful partnerships since Parkin and Mooney or Finney and Allison. Douglas and Ferry had the right balance of defence and attack to cover each other and support the play. It was ‘liquid football’ as Alan Partridge would put it.

This season Alan Partridge would have a field day at thinking up expletives to describe our teamand performances. Let’s take the team from this Saturday, which was the first time we have had the same 11 two weeks in a row since our last league win at Charlton back in early January.

(442) Lucas, Caddis, Cuthbert, Frampton, Rose, McGovern, Douglas, Timlin, Ritchie, Obika, Benyon.

Straight away it doesn’t strike you with as much confidence as the playoff season and this is the first downfall. The team is full of individuals rather than team players.

Too many players this season are unsure as to what their squad status is, dropping and changing every week. The odd injury is fine, but changes have been made to formation and teams most weeks so the team hasn’t settled. No players have gelled together as one minute it’s a 3-5-2, then a 4-3-3 (4-5-1?) 4-4-2, some weeks it takes me half the match to figure out what we are playing.

‘We never replaced Greer, Paynter and Ward’

The saying that has come out of every Town fans mouth. The statement to start with is a true one. They have pretty much been replaced by Frampton, Dossevi (Benyon?) and Ritchie. These players aren’t as good so where do you begin with the rant?

Greer shouldn’t have ever been sold. From what we know, Greer wanted a contract and he wasn’t offered one. After a season of helping us to a playoff final you should offer him a new deal after a very solid season. It’s no shock that our defence has crumbled without him. Cuthbert isn’t an experienced centre defender and has struggled without the Scot by his side. Frampton might be experienced, but has struggled with injury, only in on loan and isn’t a replacement for Greer. He is barely someone brought in to patch up the back.

Paynter wasn’t a player we could stop leaving. He had one good season at the Town and left. If we had of got promoted, him staying was probably still unknown. So, we had the entire summer to replace him and it didn’t happen. People may say he got in Pericard and Dossevi to try and replace him but they haven’t been good enough. Pericard was never going to make the step up, and Dossevi scored two good headers v Forest and got a contract. It was a last minute ditch attempt signing when you see it from a fans perspective.

Danny Ward was the energy behind towns attack from the left wing. He could get into areas up front and had formed a good understanding with Sheehan. We have almost certaintly tried to get him back to no avail. These things happen, so we signed Matt Ritchie, the player who when he came on loan couldn’t get a game. He was signed for around 200k and came with much hope. I didn’t rate him before, and in a side not playing well, he stands out still. He is a winger with no pace and no strength.

Transfer Dealings

We went into this season as big favourites for the playoffs, so we should have been an interesting proposition too many league one or out of favour championship players. We didn’t strengthen our squad and it has cost us.

The signings of Rose, Sheehan, Caddis, Ferry and Prutton are all fine and necessary but their performances have been another matter. Sheehan was a good signing following his successful spell on loan from Leeds along with Ferry, one of the players of the season.

Ferry though has come in and been behind Prutton in the pecking order. Prutton was a big name signing for us and has played in some good sides like Southampton but hasn’t lived up to his reputation. Simon Ferry still can’t get a chance to settle again with Jonathan Douglas in centre midfield and changing that from last season has been a decision that still baffles most fans.

The signing of Paul Caddis hasn’t worked out so far and at least Michael Rose has scored from goals from dead ball situations. Rose for me isn’t much better than Sheehan, but neither have set the town defence on fire, they have rather made other team’s strikeforces look on fire.

Thomas Dossevi…well that one just hasn’t worked either. An energetic striker, who along with Pericard just can’t play two games the same (that’s if he actually plays one game well.) He has shown signs of potential at least, but it hasn’t happened and he isn’t a goal scorer. Elliot Benyon has now come in with Jonathan Obika last minute and these two are our only hope for goals.

So, Is Danny Wilson the man?

So, we currently sit in 20th, one point above the drop but have played more games than a majority of the sides around us. This has been overly negative, but with the situation being the complete opposite to last, its expected.

Danny Wilson I feel could get us out of this mess, but it’s not what me or the fans think. It’s the players who have got to have confidence and I struggle to see it from the stands. The players don’t know whether they have a regular place or a regular system along with no confidence.

Wilson came in and kept us up before and so why not again? But at least in that squad we had Simon Cox scoring 31 goals in a season, and our man to keep us up, Charlie Austin has gone.

We move onto Southampton away on Saturday, a team yet to beat us since they came down to League One, but that side they faced in those four defeats is so different to the one they will come up against this weekend. A point would feel like a win, and that’s the situation we are in.

Our destiny is in our hands with games against Walsall, Plymouth and Dagenham to come in March. These are games we can’t afford to lose or who knows, we could go from Wembley to the Kassam Stadium in just over 12 months…

Del Rio on the road to Wrestlemania…

But you already knew that! Well I hope you did and tuned in for the 2011 Royal Rumble to see Alberto Del Rio fulfil his destiny.

This year’s rumble was one of the easier results to predict, as seenon my blog, as Del Rio dropped many hints that he will win the Royal Rumble, as many superstars failed to make such a statement.

The Royal Rumble saw some great surprises with cameo appearances from Booker T and Diesel (Kevin Nash) and overall the rumble impressed after a slow start. The rumble was kicked off with the chaos between The Corre and The New Nexus, which makes a potential match at Wrestlemania. Especially after taking Husky Harris out of action on Raw making each group have three surplus wrestlers after their ‘leader’.

We saw cameos from Booker T and Diesel, which was a brilliant move by WWE. We always see the usual old school wrestlers that are getting to repetitive, so to move forward in time to get Booker and Nash was a great move.

John Cena’s elimination was a good creative move by WWE. It was shocking, different and sets up The Miz v Cena at Wrestlemania. However WWE, as suggested in my last blog, might mix things up at this year’s Elimination Chamber.

The Elimination Chamber has taken a different approach to usual this year as the WWE Title will be defended outside of the steel structure. The chamber on Raw will consist of John Cena, CM Punk, R-Truth, Sheamus, John Morrison and Randy Orton to decide the number one contender at Wrestlemania.

Having no WWE title on the line in the Chamber does take some of the surprise element out of the match. Expect Cena to win, with The New Nexus probably costing Randy Orton the match in some way to further ignite that rivalry with CM Punk before Mania.

So, in the WWE title match we have The Miz v Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler. It may seem weird, boring and pointless but it has a reason behind it. Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler, as stated this week on Raw, has never had a match at Wrestlemania. Classic WWE line to say ‘by the way, I’m going to have a fight at Wrestlemania’ don’t worry though, it won’t be Lawler v Cena for his newly won WWE title. The match will probably (definitely) involve Michael Cole interfering and costing Lawler the match.

On Smackdown, there is the usual concept of the World Heavyweight Title being fought for inside the Chamber. The winner will face Alberto Del Rio at the ‘Grand Daddy of them all’ and Edge will retain to face Del Rio. He does face a challenge from Rey Mysterio, Kane, Wade Barrett, Dolph Ziggler and Jack Swagger but expect one of these to be a part of and win the Money in the Bank match (which may be scrapped, but hopefully not)

It sounds very obvious, but with Edge being the biggest face on Smackdown at the moment, and Del Rio hoping to be the biggest heel on Smackdown, you expect these two to be put together in the second main event at Wrestlemania.

But where does this all leave The Undertaker’s Streak and Triple H’s soon return?

If you saw Raw, with the promo video that said the date ’21.2.11’ then it would suggest Taker will be back on a Monday Night Raw, not at the Elimination Chamber. It’s an odd one, as it’s assumed he’ll face Barrett, and still will. Why they couldn’t do it one night earlier at the Elimination Chamber to give some added entertainment to the Smackdown title match isn’t known, so we will have to see.

There have been rumours flying around that the date and promo actually relates to Sting joining the WWE. If this happened, it would be good for the one off event. However, everyone on the internet is billing this up to be some amazing match. Surely Taker would win still, Sting probably wouldn't be around long term and so it would be good on the night, but in the long term would it gain anything? putting Barrett against Taker for me would better enhance young talent.

Triple H didn’t return at the Rumble, as said before, to make his impact greater at the Elimination Chamber. When the Raw rumble match was announced, I guessed that Sheamus would face The Miz and HHH would interfere, cost Sheamus the match and we have our Wrestlemania re match. It looks like he may return inside the chamber, (Shawn Michaels style?) and cost Sheamus the

number one spot. Hopefully it will be done with little fuss to add to the drama of it.

The Elimination Chamber last year brought much shock and moved the direction of matches last minute, this year it all seems to be set up at the Rumble, so the Chamber is a mere formality. It’s disappointing that the Chamber may lose some of its shock element but it does make sense for the Rumble to have the major set up of rivalries as it will get many more viewers than the Chamber.

So, through those thoughts you may have noticed where Wrestlemania might be heading, but to make it clear, here are the matches that you might expect to see…

WWE Title

The Miz v John Cena

World Heavyweight Title

Edge v Alberto Del Rio

CM Punk v Randy Orton

Sheamus v Triple H

Undertaker v Wade Barrett

The New Nexus (Otunga, McGillicutty and Mason Ryan) v The Corre (Slater, Gabriel and Jackson)

Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler v Michael Cole

We may also get 2 of the following:

Money in the Bank match

Intercontinental title match

Tag Team title match

Divas Championship match

US Title match