Butterflies time! Swindon away, a game that's been singled out as a highlight and a vital fixture by many people for quite a while now. If we want to win the title, then I think we need to win this game. If we lose, it's not the end of the world in terms of our promotion hopes, but it will leave us with a lot of ground to make up if we want to win the league. The appointment of Paolo "itza me" Di Canio in the summer caught the eye of the footballing world. Street urchins in Brazil were jumping up and down with joy at the news. A desperate, frail old man fondly stroked his plane ticket to Swindon. He couldn't afford a ticket to the game due to the preposterous pricing structure, but just being in the presence of the greatest player ever to say the words "league two" was enough. And back out of Paolo's mind and into reality. A horrible start to the season included a defeat at the Meadow, and falling out with players and angering officials ensured Di Canio caught the eye for all the wrong reasons. However, credit to him, he turned it around (although it's clearly nothing to do with him, Swindon "will win the league" without him. But Crawley are the best team in League Two, aren't they?) and they put together some serious form. Then they signed more players. And more. And beat some premiership team. Easy pickings. Swindon: Recent Form: WWWWWW Top Scorers: Ritchie(10); Connell (8); Kerrouche (8) Last Meeting: Shrewsbury 2-1 Swindon (Gornell, Morgan; Ritcie) League Position: 3[SUP]rd[/SUP], 58 points from 29 games, GD 28 Home Record: W10 D2 L1 F29 A7 Shrewsbury: Recent Form: WWWLWW Away Record: W6 D3 L7 F21 A20 League Position: 4[SUP]th[/SUP], 57 points from 20 games, GD 17 Lenny's SUPER Fact: Only Accrington from the top 10 have fewer away points than Shrewsbury Lenny's GRANDISON Fact: Jermaine Grandison is a 3 star Michelin chef. Lenny's Prediction: Swindon 3-0 Shrewsbury (attendance 7612)
this is very much the game of the season for both clubs. swindon have an unbeaten run of several games, and consequently the biggest gd of 28. they have thumped crawley 3-0 and southend 4-1 away as well as beating barnet at home and bulls away. it is a brave person who will predict an away win next tuesday. a home win seems likely a draw a slim possibility. i predict a close game with a wroe penalty seperating the teams. swindon 0 shrews 1 wroe penalty. att 8223 come on you shrews breath on em throw the rotties a bone. floreat salopia
I think we can do it - I predict an outstanding defensive display with Sharps magnificent as usual and the third consecutive late winner from Collins - 1-0 to the Shrews.
Regrettably, I also have to go with 3-0 to Swindon, unless we catch them on an off day which would be our only hope. Attendance 8425
Option A: A sliced shot by John Taylor hitting Di Caneo in the crown jewels, it's filmed and shown on telly, but town lose Option B: Shrewsbury win What ya gonna choose?
Swindon fan in peace, Just a couple more facts for you all to think about, we have been beaten twice in the last 27 league games, our goalkeeper Wes Fodderingham has not conceded a league goal at home since October. I hope a lot of you travel, because this game has the makings of being the game of the season in League 2 this year, sorry about the price of the tickets , but we pay them for every game. What ever the outcome i wish you the best for the rest of the season, and not being big headed hope we play each other next season in league 1.
thankfully we have a writer of the classics charles dickens to rely on, for whilst staying in one of swindons lowest boarding houses writing his latest novel exclaimed in a very loud voice, "swindon a bleak house, the shrews will piss all over the robins" now i think charles dickens admirably summed it up, and the reason he was staying in a cheap boarding house was because of the expense of the others. small wonder an arm and a leg are required to enter paulo's pizza palace county ground of course william shakespeare stayed one night and it is understood much ado about nothing followed. so there you have swindon, a crap defence, a poor midfield and the attack is as fresh as the shrews, ie deficient. so i take the shrews to slaughter these pretenders 1-0 wroe. penalty. 8223, and their manager de canio calls his lads his rottweillers. woof woof , well our shropshire terriers eat them fof breakfast. tally ho shrews, let our pack free
well what a game...this match will show us how we are developing and i think this will be a big test for both sides and could propel us into the automatics, which will give us a good psychological boost, sorry i cant put Marvin down as a scorer because i think thats the end of him now, but ill go for Swindon 0 Shrews 1 Gornell att 8100...pity we couldnt sign Kamdjo, he looks deadly in the box!
hi redjed, we fear no one but we respect. your record is impressive and i have no doubt the shrews will do their best to rearrange it. floreat salopia, come on you shrews, breath on em. otely road expects!
Big game but, with 15/16 games to play afterwards, not critical, whatever the outcome. Swindon are being over-hyped - understandably by di Canio but less understandably by some Salop fans. They're on a great run but it'll end sooner or later. Could be tonight. There's nothing for us to fear. We know we're as good as any team in this league if we play to our best. We'll have to up our game to win tonight as we don't seem to have hit top gear since the Southend game, but still won 3 out of 4. A draw would be a good result, especially if the home crowd's noisy. It's just a pity the Tuesday night and high prices have put a lot of Shrews fans off making the journey. Is the ref really from Wiltshire, as our website says? How can that possibly be justifiable, or even sensible? I wouldn't want a Shropshire ref if we were at home.
Whilst I do agree to a certain extent, I do think that 4 points behind the form team having played a game more is a lot. We aren't worried about Oxford who are an equivalent distance behind us. Swindon have a good squad, not any standout goal machine up front (much like us - although Collins is doing his bit right now!) but an excellent defence and midfield. As I said in my article, I think that, regardless of the result, we are still 100% in the race for third/second, but I think that Swindon will be a step too far if we lose. The quality of the teams in this division is amazing this season. There are teams such as ourselves - who, as you rightly say, can beat any team our our day - and Oxford, Cheltenham and Southend who were in this league last year but who are better than last season; there are Swindon who have come down and done well, there's Crawley who've come up and done well; and the teams like Barnet look better than they have done in times past. If you're correct about the ref, then that's not good at all. Although, thinking about it, there's no reason for him to be a Swindon fan - I'd hate a Telford fan reffing one of our games!
Ainsworth out of the squad. Why keep him? We could have got a decent amount of cash for him in January, and I'd imagine he's on decent wages. I think he's a great player, but there's no point having him rotting in our, well, not reserves, but the proverbial second string. It won't do him any good either.
It looks like Ainsworth is having problems - whether that is with GT or something else, we will find out in time. I would like to see him be here next season, but we seem to have a few wingers, ahem, sitting in the wing.
