From bad, to worse, to what next?

Another Monday, another defeat to ponder. It's getting difficult to say something new here after yet another hopeless performance, and I strongly suspect this time next week we could be looking back on another unhappy Saturday at the County Ground. We're being visited by high-flying Oldham Athletic, who are making a habit of gubbing struggling sides at the moment.

There's already talk of protests over at MOS and, frankly, it's hardly a surprise. Lots of people were never happy with King's reappointment at the start of the year, and the fact his side managed a respectable mid-table finish - and a fantastic start to this season - was only ever going to silence them temporarily.

It might be unfair to say they've been waiting for King to trip up - I'm sure everyone would rather King was leading us to the top of the table, or at least somewhere respectable - but now he's down they're not pulling any punches. Serious grumbles from the stands, maybe a protest after the match, will follow anything less than what would be a remarkable victory on Saturday.

There are few signs of hope. Today's Adver brands Saturday's performance, which dumped us in the relegation zone, as pathetic, and says only Bart Gremink can hold his head high.

But it's notable that Jon Ritson pins the blame on the players, for forgetting the lessons from all the hard work done in training, rather than on the management. "Messrs King and Coppell were left scratching their heads after all their hard work on the training ground was seemingly ignored by the players," he writes. "Surely things cannot get much worse than this?"

Trouble is, you fear they can. It sounds like the players are at a low ebb, with Adam Willis admitting to feeling "embarassed" by the performance. We may not have reached the bottom yet.

King: "worst performance I've seen"

Andy King was unusually angry on the radio tonight, and took the rare step of getting stuck into the team in public. He described today's performance at Luton as "unacceptable" and "the worst performance I've seen since I've been manager at this football club", and picked out players including Andy Gurney, Gareth Edds and Danny Invincible for individual errors that made Luton's goals possible.

Speaking on Wiltshire Sound tonight, he said he'd be "looking for a way round the embargo" to try and bring new faces to the County Ground, because he said he had no options to change the side around in the way he wanted to. He said the players had been "bullied" by one Luton player - Howard - and found serious faults with every part of the team.

Luton Town 3 Swindon Town 0

Back to our losing ways, and a defeat away to Luton that could have been much worse, by all accounts. Listening to the WS commentary (I didn't make it down for the same reasons the blog has been quiet this week - sorry) it seems we played well when we had the ball - but failed to defend in anything like the required way. Steve Robinson hobbled off midway through the second half, his injured ankle clearly not bearing up to the test it was set, and few Swindon players were on song. Perhaps only Bart Gremink came out of it at all well, with our defenders back to their old tricks, and the attackers drawing a blank again. Worst of all, Sol Davies had a good game, and it was his attempt at an overhead kick that led to Luton's second goal.

Ananova summary is here, while the BBC's blow by blow account provides all the grim detail here.

Another transfer embargo hits Town

As the BBC reports tonight, Swindon Town has been hit with another transfer embargo. This time it's for not paying transfer-listed Neil Ruddock a loyalty payment, which is due as part of his megabucks contract. There's the hint that the embargo is not as watertight as previous ones - we might be able to sign someone, with League approval - but it's yet another embarassment for the club. And, of course, if there's an injury crisis we're going to struggle to get anyone in quickly. I'm also not sure, yet, what this means for the Simon Roger rumour (below).

Former Palace captain on trial

Simon Roger, the former Crystal Palace captain, has joined Swindon Town on trial according to this post on Rivals. Can't find confirmation anywhere else, yet, but it makes sense given Steve Coppell's links with Palace.

Update: Confirmation has come from this Adver story.

Swindon Town 2 Northampton Town 0

This was a big win. It maybe wasn’t the prettiest performance, but Town dominated the match through some hard graft. Backed by a small (4,700-strong) but mostly supportive County Ground crowd, Town dug out the three points the club so badly needed.

The first half performance was the Town we saw at the start of the season. The players settled quickly back into the 4-3-3 shape, perhaps aided by familiar faces in familiar positions.

Gurney went to right back and barely put a foot wrong, supported by the crowd in the Nationwide despite a few boos from the Town End. Heywood and Willis looked, finally, rock solid against a Northampton attack that, as we know, was in form before today.

In midfield Hewlett and Robinson worked hard to close down Northampton – their contribution, I thought, helped kill the Cobblers’ attacks before they begun.

Danny Invincible, an early inspiration, and Matty Heywood both had headed chances saved early in the first half. But it wasn’t until the half hour that Town were able to break the deadlock.

Spurs youngster Johnnie Jackson was chopped down on the edge of the box, directly in front of goal, by Northampton’s Paul Harsley. Gurney shook to take one of his piledrivers, but Jackson stepped up to send a left foot curler high over the wall, into the postage stamp corner. You could feel the relief right around the ground.

The second goal came after plenty of Town pressure had come to nothing. Sam Parkin raced onto a short back pass, and the Northampton keeper clattered him to the ground. Harper was (pretty harshly) sent off, and Parkin converted the penalty.

More cheers all round and, with Town looking so comfortable for most of the match – apart from a brief period in the second half – they were never going to lose against ten men, despite the best efforts of yet another hilariously poor referee (late on, he booked Heywood for, as far as I could tell, making a tackle that won the ball quite cleanly).

And, it has to be said, it was a win despite the efforts of a tiny minority of Town fans too: not just the ones who have made such a song and dance about staying away, but those who turned up and booed two of their own players (two of the best ones, at that) during the match. Amazing, really.

LDV Vans draw

We've got third division Southend, at the County Ground, on the 22nd or 23rd of October.

Preview: Town v Northampton

Come to the County Ground tomorrow, and it'll be hard to spot which Town is in the most trouble.

Swindon Town you should know all about: record breaking losing streak, manager under siege, players under fire, soul-searching among fans accused of being disloyal.

Northampton Town, meanwhile, have to find £500,000 by the end of January 2003 to avoid going under after two failed high-profile take-over attempts. We've been there ourselves only recently, although at least the Cobblers' on-pitch form has been a little better than ours of late. They sit in 14th place, with five more points than Swindon.

A little of the sting has, hopefully, been taken out of tomorrow's reunion between Messrs Gurney and Heywood by an apology from the pair in today's Adver and on the club website. Both players acknowledge what they did during the 2-0 defeat at Cheltenham was unacceptable.

Will the fans let it lie? Our team might be nervous wrecks, but a glimpse at the letters in today's paper suggests there are a few fans ready to continue this spat. Really, the club needs all our support if it is to get a win tomorrow. And nothing but three points will do.

That's not going to be straightforward. Aside from the feuding at the club, we have injury problems. Danny Invincible bruised a leg against Cheltenham, Alan Reeves failed a fitness test that day and Adam Willis remains a doubt. Stefani Miglioranzi is also still being troubled by a knee injury.

Even with all those players fit, it's hard to predict King's team selection and formation (one of our problems this season, perhaps?). With one or more of those players injured, it could be a right old hotchpotch of a side that takes the field.

I've particular fears for our central defence. Matthew Heywood and whoever plays alongside him will have to deal with Marco Gabbiadini, an experienced striker who's also bang in form at the moment. He netted a hat-trick midweek in the Cobblers' 4-1 demolition of Colchester (and Colchester, a side above us in the table, were "outclassed" according to that report).

Northampton also have a few decent players in a midfield that has been rebuilt for this term: Paul Trollope, the former Swindon Town trainee who was linked with a move back to the County Ground this summer, will play in Swindon for the first time in years tomorrow. The only bonus for Swindon is that Daryl Burgess, the former WBA defender, is suspended. Their manager, Kevin Broadhurst, warns today in his local newspaper that Northampton have to be on guard for a rebound by Swindon's players. Here's hoping.

I, for one, will be applauding the team onto the pitch tomorrow, and giving them my backing through the game, because that's what football fans should do. It's by no means an ideal match to be playing when we need a win to get the season going again, but I fully expect to be applauding them back off after getting all three points. Defeat is pretty much unthinkable. Isn't it?

Cheltenham defeat: the aftermath

Sorry to the regulars who came here yesterday for some kind of comment on Tuesday night's debacle. The stats suggest there were quite a few folk looked in - defeat is better for website hits, I've discovered.

Frankly, being too depressed for words I locked myself in a dark place with nothing for company but some Arkells, Mrs Log's Morrisey album and a tape of Andy King's greatest post-match interviews, and was only talked down from the loft at 3am this morning.

Things weren't any better in the cold light of day. Quite rightly, outrage greeted the feeble performance on the pitch that handed Cheltenham Town their first ever second division win. Quite rightly, outrage greeted the gestures and foul-mouthed remarks to the crowd of club captain Andy Gurney and last year's player of the season, Matty Heywood.

Locked away yesterday, my initial thoughts were to have the two players dumped in the reserves and put up for sale. As the day wore on, I realised we hardly had the squad to get away with such dramatic action, and we'd be lucky to sell them anyway.

By evening, having read what was said to the players concerned, I was thinking the Supporters' Trust suggestion - that they apologise to the fans and we all try to get along in the future - was much more sensible and mature. Even if sensible and mature are not words you'd attach to the players concerned, or the minority of fans who had been goading them so much on Tuesday night (one poster on Rivals even suggests the fans owe the players an apology). Certainly, having read what was said, I've never heard of anything like it, from fans at any club.

In every sense, Town are a shambles. Fans are turning on players, players are turning on the crowd, and fans and players are even having a go among themselves. But I don't think it's all Andy King's fault - I have to say I felt genuine sympathy for the man when he was interviewed on Wiltshire Sound after the match. And he has to stand by his players, because if he loses them then - by his own admission - he's lost his job.

He sounded bemused by what's going on, and it only made me even more relieved we had Steve Coppell around to try and help turn things around. The way things stand at the moment, Moses himself would be having second thoughts about helping out at the County Ground.

So what has gone wrong? It's been popular to point out that what was a pretty reliable defence last year is falling to bits. Certainly, either with three or four at the back, there's clearly a problem with Matty Heywood's form and confidence, and communication between the back line and Bart Gremink.

King is at fault for his team selections: I'm not sold on Gareth Edds at right back - given he plays in the centre of midfield for the Aussie u-21s, perhaps he should swap with Gurney who looks lost, and far too far forward, in central midfield.

And poor old David Duke, favourite for the boo boys, is a right-sided midfielder asked to play at left back. I think his performances haven't been bad, considering (he has learnt to cross with his "wrong" foot as time has passed) but he should now be played in the right position to put him out his misery.

But the defence is not the whole problem. Last season, our bottleneck was in midfield: with things not working in there, our strikers had to work off scraps. This season, our midfield has been doing better (except in the most recent couple of games) but our strikers have shown they couldn't hit a barn door from two yards, let alone a goal with a real, live, semi-conscious goalkeeper.

It's not just misses: Sam Parkin has looked dead to what chances there are, failing to cross his defender or the keeper to attack the ball. We all knew Eric Sabin lacked a finishing touch: he is now demonstrating a wider lack of technique that means moves too often break down around him. Surely Alan Young deserves a chance to show what he can do when Danny Invincible, who can supply the pace, is fully fit. Indeed, we've missed Danny: Jimmy Davis, while skilful, didn't make the killer ball often enough, wasting too many good opportunities to create a chance.

Finally, there's the "x" factor: confidence. At the start of the season, we had bags of it (and I use "we" deliberately, because I mean both the fans and the players). The way things are going, I half expect the team to be booed onto the park on Saturday, and with the first mistake there will be howls of protest. That's no way to motivate the players, and practically guarantees a defeat.

We need to get behind the team on Saturday, and leave any protests until the end. What chance that? At the moment, it's the loft again for me on Saturday night.

A bold move by King

The BBC Wiltshire Sound site now has details of Steve Coppell's appointment, and the more you read the more it looks a brave and honest decision by Andy King to bring in Steve Coppell.

It appears King has simply realised it will take something fresh to fire up the players and reverse their slump in form, and thinks Coppell is the man to deliver that. There's one curious quote, however, which suggests King maybe has a thought or stepping aside or moving upstairs in time: "There will come a time when I may take a braver decision when I feel it's for the benefit of the football club and the players," he says.

Update: The Adver now has the most in-depth report. In it, King admits that he had to take charge of the situation before the situation took charge of him - ie, he got sacked.

More on Coppell

The official website has just posted this confirmation of Coppell's short term appointment as Town assistant manager this afternoon, with the offical line claiming it was Andy King's idea that Coppell come to the club. It transpires that Coppell was at Loftus Road on Saturday "scouting for another club", it is claimed, so has already seen Town in "action".

Thing is, if this is Andy King's decision, it's mighty big of him to do it. He has nothing to gain, personally, from Coppell arriving: any turnaround will be attributed to the new assistant manager, any continued slump still pinned on King because the new man can't do all he needs to do. Either Andy King has had this forced on him, or he really has put the club's interests before his own. I suspect it's the latter, which says a lot of good things about the man.

Coppell in, Razor's demoted

There's news breaking this afternoon that Steve Coppell is being brought in on a week-to-week deal to act as Andy King's number two at the County Ground. Neil Ruddock, currently player-coach, is being stripped of his coaching duties, according to BBC Wiltshire Sound. Details are a bit scarce at the moment, but the future of Malcolm Crosby - even of Andy King himself - is unclear tonight, and Ruddock's demotion is hardly likely to make the camp any happier. The board's move pretty much slaps down any suggestion that Ruddock could take over from Andy King if the manager quit, or was sacked.

Coppell, a former England international winger, managed Crystal Palace during their most recent top-flight glory days in the late 1980s/1990s. More recently, this summer he quit as manager of Brentford after becoming disenchanted with the financial situation at Griffin Park. His resignation was something of a surprise: Coppell, as he admits in this BBC report, is quite an expert in helping out financially-strapped clubs.

He told the BBC then: "I'd like to manage at as high a level as I can. My record in recent years has been looking after teams who have been in dire financial straits. But there is a hell of a market in that and I know I can get the best out of limited resources. I'm just sitting here now and I'll be looking for work and looking for a job."

Getting the best out of limited resources is just what we need for the moment; a new man with fresh ideas can only be welcomed as we look to bounce back from six defeats on the trot.

More details as they become available.

QPR 2 Swindon Town 0

On the face of it, this could be taken as an improvement - we were gubbed 4-0 this time last year by QPR. But any attempt at positive thought has been driven from the minds of most Town supporters by our terrible run of results. This was Town's sixth defeat in a row and that, according to the stattos, is some kind of grim record. More importantly, it leaves our confidence-drained side in 20th position, and facing a now-vital trip to local rivals Cheltenham tomorrow night.

Today's Adver correctly notes the air of inevitability about his defeat. Before the match most fans seemed to feel a repeat of last year's gubbing was likely: once the first QPR goal went in, it seems the players themselves gave up too.

Andy King acknowledges that his players are at a low ebb at the moment, and need a "good battling peformance" to get going again. Maybe a derby match offers that opportunity - especially when it's against a side which has yet to win a second division match this season.

But what never fails to amaze me is Andy King's ability to talk himself into even more trouble than he's already in: from admitting he doesn't know what has gone wrong, to comparing his situation (six defeats in a row) to Sir Alex Ferguson's (two), he seems to give the King Out crowd yet more ammunition. It doesn't inspire confidence, even in those of us who think King remains the best - perhaps only - option open to Town at the moment.

Off to Loftus Road

It would be hard to pick any team in this division I'd feel confident playing at the moment. But, on a terrible five-game losing streak, our performances gradually getting worse, a trip to promotion-hopefuls QPR would be pretty far down my list.

But that's what we've got, and we make the journey down the M4 with an injury crisis to boot. Adam Willis is certainly out: he hurt his knee scoring in the Worthington Cup midweek, although he should be fit for Tuesday's trip to Cheltenham. On-loan Jimmy Davis, meanwhile, is said to have returned to Old Trafford for treatment (the Adver agrees) after crashing into Eric Sabin on Wednesday night, although the BBC claims "the Robins are confident he will be available" for tomorrow. We'll see, although I think they mean to be referring to Willis, who says today he'd like to play. I'm sure the BBC sport pages used to be more accurate than they are these days...

One player certainly returning to the fold, however, is Danny Invincible, who I think we've really missed over the last three weeks. He's missed a few games, but here's hoping King plays him from the start despite any doubts he may have over his match fitness. Also available for selection after serving his three game ban is Spurs youngster Johnnie Jackson, who tells the Adver he will have lots of his family in the stands to cheer him on if he gets a game. It would be great to see us revert to 4-4-2 with Jackson and Invincible up the flanks, but who knows which permutation Andy King will go for this time. Jackson, to be fair, has only played a game or two in Spurs' reserves so far this season - he might not be up to a starting place.

One thing we know is that Reeves will be filling in for Willis at the back and, with this season's creative spark sitting in Manchester, it's clear tomorrow is going to be very, very tough. QPR have plenty of threats, despite being almost as broke as Town.

Those of us who went to last year's midweek game in West London will remember Kevin Gallen, who had just returned to Loftus Road after a spell with Huddersfield and Barnsley. He scored the third QPR goal that night, and bagged a further six goals in 25 games after that. This season his form is far better: he has managed five goals already.

Rangers have also signed former Watford and Chelsea man Paul Furlong from Birmingham City, but he's got a hamstring injury and is rated doubtful. Our main spring of hope has to come from QPR's last result: a Tuesday night defeat in the Worthington Cup to third division Leyton Orient. Let's hope it doesn't make them angry or, on our current form, things could get very uncomfortable indeed.

League Cup: Swindon Town 1 Wycombe 2

Another game, another defeat, and the memory of our bright start to the season fades even further. Now we're losing without even playing the fine football that marked our defeats a few weeks ago. Things are still sloppy at the back, inspiration-free in the middle and utterly blunt up front.

A cup run could have been a very useful top-up for Town's still rickety finances. Simply for reasons of pride, it would have been nice to hang in for more than one round. Instead, we went out pretty meekly.

The inquest might have begun on the Town mailing list and Rivals this morning, but it appears that there was plenty of shouting and balling in the dressing room in the minutes after the players trudged off the park to boos, once again, from the 2,993-strong County Ground crowd. It's a shame such passion couldn't be shown on the pitch, because it looked like the only person trying to gee the side up towards the end was Steve Robinson.

But with the team as a whole failing so totally at the moment, it is natural that attention is now focussing on Andy King and his management of the side. A big rendition of "Andy King's barmy army" from the Town end last night suggested that there are still many fans who believe King can lead us from this mire. But more and more are joining the minority who never wanted King in charge in the first place.

There's no point in picking over the details of this mostly turgid match here - Jon Ritson does it well in tonight's Evening Advertiser. Suffice to say that the two goals we lost - both headers - could be put down to bad defending.

In particular, for the second Wycombe goal it felt everyone in the ground could see what was going to happen next - except the players on the pitch. Red shirts massed at the front post, the blue ones at the back, and McCarthey had a pretty easy job to finish off.

But it wasn't just down to the defence last night - in fact, I thought Heywood looked better, and Willis looked commanding until he hurt himself scoring a brave equaliser in the first period of extra time, and had to go off.

There seems to be a lack of urgency among key players, which undermines King's tactics and makes life harder for everyone. David Duke - who performed well last night - often found himself unsupported after he had broken down the left wing. Maybe it was the fact Robinson got himself a silly booking early on, and the returning Hewlett wasn't fully fit, but our central midfield lacked the snap you need in this division. Miglioranzi was bypassed too often as well.

Up front, Eric Sabin looked slightly sharper than his usual self - forcing an excellent save from Talia in the second half - and he seems to be appreciating he needs to produce more than a penalty-winning fall at the end of each run. But play still breaks down too often around him.

And Sam Parkin just doesn't seem interested any more: his runs are too predictable, he doesn't seem to cross his marker or the goalie enough, and the physical style that marked his early games has vanished. He isn't even as involved in the build-up as he was three or four games ago.

Perhaps it says it all that Wycombe showed all the kind of qualities we lacked last night. They worked hard for each other, looked rock solid at the back for the most part, and while their forwards weren't that clever, they certainly put themselves about.

For those of us who have to suffer the mind-numbing agony of sitting and watching, it seems amazing that any professional football team, with all those hours of training and coaching, couldn't manage that as a bare minimum. Alas, Town are proving us wrong every game.

Town in the Graun

Swindon Town make the pages of my employer, the Guardian, today. Or, more accurately, Neil Ruddock makes it. The piece is, in the main, a sympathetic interview with Ruddock - about the plight of the club, and correcting the suggestion made by some that Ruddock was transfer-listed because of his weight. "In these cash-strapped times, it was the size of Ruddock's pay packet, rather than his stomach, that led to the decision," it says. Ruddock insists that he remains keen to play, and is not ready to retire or simply sit on the sidelines and collect his wage.

It is, BTW, worth taking a look at the printed version if only to see a rare example of a new-style training top, which Ruddock is wearing zipped up to his chin in the Arkell's stand.

Thoughts for a depressing Monday morning

On calmer reflection, I'm still not joining the King Out crowd, some of whom are even hoping for another defeat to speed up the manager's departure. I'd rather we started winning again, not just for the obvious reasons, but also because I don't think the club could afford to sack King, let alone employ a decent replacement and give him the resources to get us out of this hole.

Listening to King again on the radio this morning, he correctly picked fault with players throughout the team. It wasn't just our central defenders who are likely to be picked on in today's soul searching at the Wanborough training ground. Take, for instance, Sam Parkin: the former Chelsea man looked a handful pre-season and in the opening game when he bagged at hat-trick. Since then he's failed to put himself around, going from causing chaos in the opposition penalty box to hardly turning a head. Even Jimmy Davis was short of the runs he showed off a few games ago, trying to pass around rather than take on his markers.

Today's Adver rightly gets stuck in. And I suspect King also knows where the problems are (or, at least, has a better idea than most of us). The question is: can he motivate the team enough to start putting things right quickly?

Robbed again

Town were mugged again this afternoon, a distinctly ordinary Port Vale side snatching all three points aided and abetted by some criminally bad defending from Messrs Reeves and Heywood.

But, although it was easy to point the finger at our hapless, hopeless central defensive duo for letting in Vale twice, they were not the only players at fault. Town, again, dominated for most of the match without managing to get anything like enough shots on target.

Yet it started so well. Gurney scored a simple goal after Jimmy Davis set him up from the right wing, and we all thought Town could go on and score a few. As King had written in the programme notes, had we netted early in the game last week we should have gone on to win.

But it wasn’t to happen that way. Port Vale attacked from the kick-off, and Heywood could only apply a pathetically weak head to a big high ball swung into the box. The ball trickled to the feet of Mark Bridge-Wilkinson, who sent a low shot past the strangely static Bart Gremink.

Back to square one, and the pattern from last week re-emerged. We looked comfortable in the build-up, knocking the ball around well, but too often the final ball was poor, or wasn’t there at all. Set pieces were often squandered as well, with big balls knocked slowly into the final third of the pitch causing no trouble to a workmanlike Vale defence.

They didn’t have a single player with the class of Carlton Palmer, and their goalkeeper wasn’t forced to make the kind of saves Stockport’s number one had to deal with last Saturday.

And when the ball was lumped up to the other end, we were hopeless. There had been a few scares, but Vale’s winner came midway through the second half, when Ian Brightwell crossed from the right and Bridge-Wilkinson nipped in to head past Gremink.

After that we huffed and we puffed, and at least King didn’t throw Heywood up front. Indeed, he made the substitution we had all been calling for, taking poor Reeves off and putting on Adam Willis in his place (“only two weeks too late,” shouted one wag near me). We instantly looked better at the back, with every Willis clearance cheered, but by then it was too late.

The aftermath? The knives are out for Andy King tonight, although I think a few of the louder voices over on Rivals have been pretty much waiting for this to happen. It’s too early to call for him to be removed (unless you never liked him anyway) – after all, what could another manager do with the resources available? But things do need to change as far as they can.

How does King do this? Barmyarmy is the sanest voice I’ve heard: drop Reeves and Sabin, swap Edds and Gurney, and things begin to look better. Or he could hurry back Hewlett (for Gurney) and Invincible (for Sabin), and things would look a little rosier too.

But with a visit to QPR next week, a fifth game lost in a row looks likely, no matter the line-up. After that is the local derby up at Cheltenham. Already that looks like a very important game indeed.

Welcoming Port Vale

Brian Horton's side visit the County Ground tomorrow (kick off 1.30pm, don't forget, because of the England international later in the afternoon). After our recent losing streak, Vale are probably one of the best sides for us to face this weekend: there are few clubs in the league we did the double over last season, but Vale were one of them, and both times we managed clean sheets too.

We won 2-0 at theirs last September, and 3-0 at home in March - the first game being memorable for the cries of "Bobby Howe's sexy football" from the travelling support, the second only for the financial gloom hanging over the club at the time.

Trouble is, Vale have hit a rich seam of form recently. Indeed, their season so far has almost been a mirror image of ours: a terrible start, with three defeats in a row, followed by two back to back wins away to Wigan and at home to Peterborough. The BBC reports a horribly familiar tale from the Peterborough match: Posh dominated for most of the match, before Vale stole the points at the death. Please, God, don't let that happen again tomorrow. I'm not sure we could stand it.

Update: Team news for tomorrow: the earlier suggestions that Matty Hewlett could come straight back into the side, despite not playing midweek for the reserves, along with Danny Invincible, appear to be wide of the mark. Today's Adver confirms what I'd heard earlier in the week: that neither will be ready for tomorrow. In that case, the lineup is likely to be unchanged from the Stockport match.

Willis: keeping his head down

Adam Willis is doing the right thing by not speaking out about being dropped for Stockport County, although I think he's got grounds for feeling harshly dealt with. I'm sure he's still a better bet than Alan Reeves, although Andy King clearly doesn't agree.

Numbers start to add up

An interesting report in today's Adver reveals that some dodgy County Ground turnstyles had been deflating the crowd figures. A few of us have been suspecting this for a while now - the opening day's crowd of 5,702 looked low and, we discover today, was in fact underestimated by more than 400 fans. Two hundred more fans than recorded turned up for the Cardiff match. The bad news is last Saturday's 5,456 was correct, which means there was something of a dip for that match.
But Mark Devlin says that, far from being disappointed by those crowds, the club met its targets for August, presumably because of the higher prices. What remains to be seen is how those crowds fall as the season goes on: should our current run of form/luck hold, they may have quite a long way to fall - not least on those midweek games later in the year.

More on that mugging

Two days on, accepting Saturday's defeat is no easier. The usual fingers are being pointed in the usual directions around town and online - dodgy tactical decisions from Andy King, an inspired display from County's defence - but really the only blame must go on the players who missed chance after chance, after chance.

Jon Ritson's match report brings back the sense of injustice from Saturday afternoon. He also makes the good point that Andy Gurney will surely lose his place in midfield when Hewlett is fit again. I thought Gurney's positional play was all out, unless he was told to drive forward by King, but with Jimmy Davis playing so well that was hardly necessary. Edds' solid form at right back means the only remaining berth for the skipper might be at centre half, where Alan Reeves didn't look too convincing.

The quotes from King bemuse me, however. He pushed Matty Heywood up at the end of the match to chase an equaliser, but appears to berate the side for pumping long balls up. Given Matty's no Linford Christie on the deck, what did King expect the side to do? Wait for a Maradona-style run from the central defender?

He now faces a job to pick up the players for the next game. "The players were feeling very down," he told the Evening Advertiser immediately after the match. "They felt they had let themselves, their manager and their club down. Nothing could be further from the truth. The result let them down."