HTFC – Fans Prediction Time – Swindon Away

Right here we go. Following on from my resounding success last week PG no longer stands for ‘Pharmer Giles’, but ‘Psychic Genius’.

Confidence is high in the Galpharm camp after the magnificent come back against Yeovil, and after topping the league all week despite a spirited attempt from the Seagulls of Brighton to peck us off the top perch, so we head down to Wiltshire in good spirits and quietly confident of easing past the Robins with a solid workmanlike performance and a three point haul.

However things are not going to quite to plan. The mighty blue machine do indeed put in a good shift and perform well with the restored Joey Gudjonsson pulling the strings in midfield, however they go behind after 22 minutes after a speculative shot from the Swindon midfielder creeps in.

1-0 Swindon with their first shot on goal and against the run of play.

The 864 Town fans in the crowd rally their team however sensing that we are the better team and remembering Yeovil the previous week, and their faith is restored only 6 minutes later when the restored Rhodes fires into the top left hand corner after been fed through by Roberts playing in the hole behind the front two.

28 mins 1-1

The last 15 mins of the half is a sc***py affair with neither team creating anything of real substance.

Half time – 1-1 Town the better team and shading possession.

2nd half. No changes for Town as they start brightly again with Alan Lee having a header cleared off the line on 57 mins.

Town create chance after chance without hitting the back of the net and pay for their missed chances when Swindon’s no5 scores on 68 mins despite being obviously offside. Town are furious and Carey is booked for his protestations.

This only proves to galvanise Town however and dominate the final 20 mins.

Novak replaces Rhodes on 75 minutes and his persistance causes the Swindon defence all sorts of problems. The Swindon keeper can only slice the ball as Novak chases down a poor backpass and the ball falls to Johnson who cleverly flicks the ball to Roberts after seeing Novak was off side. Roberts beats his man to fire a cross in, just out of reach of the keeper who is catching butterflies and straight onto the head of Lee who out muscled his defender and buries the header into the back of the net.

For the first time all match the referee doesn’t penalise Lee for fouling his marker (apparently you are committing a foul if you allow your marker to wrap his arms around your neck and drag you to the floor), however he does book him for leaving the pitch to celebrate with the Town fans gathered behind the goal.

82 mins 2-2

For the final 8 minutes of normal time and somehow an amazing 5 minutes added time Town throw the kitchen sink at the Swindon goal looking for the winner that we were quietly confident of getting but it was not to be and at the final whistle both teams had to be content with a draw.

A surprising attendance of 8427 saw an entertaining match which Town should have won even though Swindon Manager Danny Wilson claimed they were good for a point and on another day could have won it (even though the stats show we battered them with 15 shots on goal to their 3)

All in all not a bad point away from home, although it does see us slip to 4th in the league as other results go against us. But never fear. The league is never won in September!

Town’s man of the match Damien Johnson. His premier league quality starts to shine through and mixes his play up well breaking up the Swindon play and bring his teammates into play with some clever play and intelligent passing.