Football Season Review

Swindon entered the season with Play-Off ambitions following their Wembley defeat to Millwall last season. There were big concerns among the fans as the summer window saw the club lose two of their best players, skipper and central defender Gordon Greer and striker and top scorer Billy Paynter, but manager Danny Wilson did bring in a number of new faces and no one could have really foreseen what happened to the Robins, as they ended up being relegated with games to spare. The omens were not good early on, as Swindon were losing games mostly due to a high number of individual errors they were making at the back, and this was something they did not manage to eradicate throughout the entire course of the season, especially at home, where they managed to win only five games throughout the season. What was the nail in the coffin for Wilson's men was the run they had early in 2011, which saw them win only one of eighteen games, and the departure of top scorer Charlie Austin didn't make it any easier for the Robins in their bid to escape relegation. League Two star Elliott Benyon, who was signed as Austin's replacement, struggling to adapt to his new surroundings, forcing Wilson to often go with Matt Ritchie out of position as a striker. Wilson decided he’d had enough in early March, opting to resign from his post as manager in order to give the club the opportunity to try and win survival with a new manager. The man that took on the task was Paul Heart, considered an emergency expert after guiding troubled Crystal Palace to survival last season, but he never managed to repeat his heroics from the Selhurst Park, as Swindon continued to slide further and further away from safety. At no point late in the season did they actually look like escaping the drop. It is hard to pinpoint what exactly went wrong for the Robins, who definitely have much more quality than their final point tally suggested, but they will have to accept life in League Two only a year after coming so close to entering the Championship.

Player of the Season: Matt Ritchie