Almost Two years to the day since their last meeting at the County Ground, Swindon Town will entertain Exeter City with a bumper crowd expected on Saturday afternoon. Can history repeat itself and will Swindon Town prevail in the wind tunnel of SN1.
Swindon Town will be looking to bounce back after a disappointing home display against John Yems Crawley side. Another two points dropped in a lethargic performance which Swindon Town were fortunate to come away with a point thanks to an injury time equaliser which ricocheted in of Jayden Mitchell-Lawson. A third successive 1-1 draw in a row which has dented Swindon Town promotion hopes.
For thirty minutes, Swindon played excellently and caused Crawley Town a lot of problems. Then a defensive mistake let Crawley in, and they looked the more settled side. Scored from a contentious and fortunate penalty. Just moments before at the other end, Swindon Town were denied a spot kick of their own. That is enough talking about referees in the EFL. Swindon did get the equaliser in the end as Crawley sat back at tried to frustrate to which they are entitled to do. They were minutes away from claiming a priceless win but were denied by a fortunate deflection.
Jack Payne injury and his hit the club hard, his influence in games in the last month has been missed in the midfield and attack. He links the play up from the midfield and attack, he finds pockets of space which teams find hard to defend against, the sooner he is back in the team the better.
Ben Garner issued the availability of players in pre-match presser today, Jack Payne only returned back to training in the week and will miss the game. Mathieu Baudry is available for selection, Akin Odimayo missed the game on Tuesday due to a knee injury and could be available. Josh Davison went for a scan on his hamstring injury which forced in him off at half time, he also could feature tomorrow as the news was good on his scan. Louis Reed will be suspended for the next two games as he picked up a red card for something he said to the referee after the final whistle on Tuesday night. Reed will miss tomorrow’s game against Exeter and Tuesday game away at Tranmere Rovers
Predicted line up
3-5-1-1
Wollacott, O’Brien, Conroy, Cooper, Hunt, Lyden, Gladwin, Williams, Iandolo, McKirdy, Barry
Exeter City are just outside the play-off positions in the League Two table, the Grecians find themselves in 8th position in the league table and just two points behind Swindon Town who occupy the final play off spot in League two. Exeter City have forty-one points from twenty-six games this season and are one point ahead of Port Vale and Salford who are the pack of three who sit just outside the playoffs and are harbouring ambitions to break into it.
Like many clubs in the EFL and above, Exeter City had a couple of games called off during the festive and the new year due to a Covid 19 outbreak. One of them was the boxing day clash between tomorrow opponents Swindon Town which will be played in March. Exeter City had two other games called off against Port Vale and against Harrogate
The run of form in the last six games has been inconsistent, two wins, two draws and two defeats. The two defeats were a 1-0 home loss to Tranmere on December 11th that was followed up by a 2-1 loss at Sutton United on new years day. The two draws were on the 4th January against League leaders Forest Green Rovers and last weekend round of action at home to Hartlepool United. The two wins were back-to-back 2-0 wins at home to Scunthorpe United and then away to Walsall.
By Scot Monroe