Swindon official site reporting: "Swindon Town crashed out of the Carling Cup at the second round stage with a 2-1 defeat at home to Southampton on Tuesday night." Nice try, but I think you're forgetting Rickie's goal?
My match ratings - Bialkowski 8 - Made a great reaction save in the second half to stop it from being 2-2 and made some good punches when needed. Harding 7 - Thought he was good going forward but did give the ball away at the back a few times. Martin 5 - I am usually a fan of Martin but in all honesty he didn't have a good game, looked nervous at times and lost out in the air a fair bit. Seaborne 6 - Slightly better than Aaron as he did well in the air but he does get caught out of position a lot - Doesn't seem to work well with Martin. Richardson 6 - Had an average game, was decent going forward and played some good passes but also made a few mistakes. Holmes 7 - Looked great in the first half, whipping in some great crosses and getting an assist. Second half he didn't see much of the ball and faded out of the game. Cork 8 - Another cracking performance, especially defensively as he always tracks back and a great passer of the ball. Schneiderlin 9 - MOTM for me, his passing and vision is just sublime, he picks it up from the back 4 and just sprays the ball around - Would have been a 10 if he had of scored! Lallana 7 - Solid game from Lallana, didn't push on offensively as much as usual but whacked out the tricks once again and should have won a penalty. Guly 8 - Was brilliant in the first half, some great touches and scored a goal. Second half when we struggled a bit more he didn't really do a lot. Forte 6 - Scored a goal (which was a keeper howler) but gave the ball away a lot and mis controlled quite a few times - seemed to do well in the air against their big centre back though. Great goal from Rickie aswell, where has that pace come from!? The referee was awful, they should have had a man sent off just before half time and Lallana should have won a penalty. He got a lot of other minor decisions wrong and I think even league 2 was above his standard. Just like to add - loved the Di Canio songs! What a tool he is!
Back. Fairly comfortable until we started to overplay it. Short goal kicks EVERY time had us under pressure but to be fair to Bart, he made a good save at his near post from Clarke to make it 2-2. Lallana was great, probably MOTM. Complete justice we got the 3rd goal as we had a blatant penalty turned down on a trip on Lallana with about 2/3 minutes to go when the awful ref was right by the incident. Plus the fact Swindon's attacker Kerrouche(?) should have been sent off right on half time. He got one booking for throwing the ball away(which the ref was very anal over) and he then consequently got angry about it and proceeded to hack down Cork and the refs solution was to blow for HT. Handbags from the 2 benches followed. Di Canio has always been a knob but he demonstrated it further tonight. Not just for the incident with Clarke either, but his petty throwing of his arms and moaning on the touchline - once confronted by Adkins. We made it more difficult than needed to at times but thankfully got the deserved 3rd goal from the very sharp and surprisingly quick Lambert. Bring on Preston/Charlton.
Back (30 mins ago) First half was easy. We passed it around like a freaking training session, hence the chants of "we are Southampton, we're taking the p*ss". We absolutely dominated. Just before the whistle went some baldy for Swindon went in studs up on one of our players ( Schneiderlin or Lallana, not sure tbh ) and as he'd been booked the ref bottled it and blew the half time whistle. Di Canio at this point was already going a bit mental, and I think that little incident may have sparked a vicious half-time speech from him, as Swindon certainly came out fired up. We, on the other hand, seemed to come out expecting a repeat of the first half (in which Swindon barely closed us down and allowed us to pass it about). Needless to say, it caused us some big problems at the back, especially with Martin who seemed to find it difficult to pick out a pass under the higher pressure from Swindon. We gave the ball away too easily for my liking, And invited even more pressure on ourselves. Never a freekick for their goal, from what I could see. Once they scored that their tails were up and they were all-out bombarding us with crosses and shots. Great save from Bart kept us ahead at 2-1 and minutes later Rickie burst through (with a surprising amount of pace), took it around the keeper and slotted it in to secure the win. My view on the players: Bart - 8/10 - Could've been positioned a bit better for their freekick, but punched well from crosses, dominated his area very well, and pulled out a world class save to keep us ahead at 2-1. Richardson - 7/10 - Made some good runs and linked up well with Holmes. Provided some good crosses, but was done once or twice by their winger. Seaborne - 7/10 - I thought he had a good game tbh. Won his fair share of headers, put in some good tackles and interceptions, and played the ball neatly along the floor. Only downside was losing a small amount of headers and a few stray long balls. Martin - 5/10 - Didn't have the composure to play the ball along the ground under pressure, got caught a few times and gave the ball away a bit. Won a decent amount of headers, but he'll have better displays for sure. Harding - 5/10 - Gave the ball away alot, some awful crosses. To be fair to him, he linked up well with Lallana and made a few incisive forward runs, something we lacked a bit today. Holmes - 8/10 (MOTM) - made some quality pacey runs with and without the ball, put in some wicked crosses, made himself space to have a couple of shots too. Very good game from the lad. Cork - 6/10 - got bullied around a bit and didn't really make too many challenges. Kept the passes neat and tidy, but we all expect that from him naturally. Schneiderlin - 7/10 - dealt with their strength reasonably well, played some good balls and had a shot deflected behind that had beaten the goalie. Lallana - 8/10 - some typical Lallana class on and off the ball, but didn't receive the ball as much as I would've hoped, and therefore wasn't as impacting as he previously has been. That said, he still turned their fullback inside out, put in some great crosses, and won us what should've been a penalty with a sublime piece of skill, turning the defender with one little twist and flick, before getting felled for what was a blatant peno. The ref was blind to miss that, and the whole away end went mental as we could see it was such a stonewaller. Forte - 6/10 - some good runs, but didn't have any one as far forward as he was to link up with, so often ran until he was tackled. Made use of his strength a fair bit, a very well taken goal too. One downside was quite a few mis-placed passes and lay offs. Not his fault, but he didn't have anyone to link up with really. Guly - 7/10 - seemed to play a little deeper than Forte which meant that Forte was a little isolated. Guly made some great tackles and won back the ball several times with his tenacity, and showed off with a fair bit of skill. Lost the ball a few times though, and could've linked up better with Jonno. Good header for the goal. Subs: Lambo - was quality when he came on, though he had little time to impress. Came up with the all important third, with a good burst of pace to get ahead of the chasing defender, latch onto the through ball, then he had the composure to round the keeper and calmly slot it home. (too little time to rate him out of ten) Reeves - too little time and hardly touched the ball Deano - same as Reeves. Good atmosphere in patches, but I was disappointed with how many people weren't bothering to support the team they travelled to Swindon to watch. No singing from a large part of the away fans annoyed me and was probably the only downside to the evening. Was fun takin the p*ss out of Di Canio, and tbf to a chunk of our away support, there were some decent songs and noise (Yellloowsss!!). COYS
just the average "Paolo, what's the score, Paolo, Paolo, what's the score?!?". Went on for a couple of minutes actually. Was pretty funny.
And where has all that pace come from Lambo??? Loved his celebration infront of the terrace, the classic Lambert fist-clench and shout.
You could tell Lambo was going to out pace their defender - Well just about, but I wasn't expecting him to take it round the keeper aswell!
I don't care what anybody says, I like ol' Lambert. Nice to have a pukka centre forward in the squad. He may not be Brazilian, but his technique, for a big bloke, is sh** hot..!
Personally thought the ref and linesman had a shocker. Booked 3 players for 'throwing' the ball away? How Kerrouche (some baldy from swindon) stayed on the pitch i do not know. Your keeper was taking the p*ss a bit with the goal kicks as well, very surprised he didnt get a card for time wasting. Agreed with Jdub, thought that your fans were rather quiet for the numbers you actually had at the CG last night. Good luck for the rest of the season, think you will be there or there abouts this year!
Had a great evening with my boy. I thought the atmosphere was great but I think we were in the middle of the noisier contingent. The game was decent to to watch and was a bit nervy at the end. Great save by Bart at the end. I though Cork looked amazing again and was my MOTM. He stands out for me. Defence were ok but started to shake in the second half. Forte put lost of effort in but I think he is the only player who hasnt got a passing brain. Still if he tries hard I wont get on his back. Not sure why we always try and play it out the back even when swindon were playing further up the pitch to pressure us. We need to mix it up on occoassions. Still I was home before 11pm, so that was nice
