Swindon Town 0 MK Dons 2 - Hopeful

Matt Ritchie is a positive and optimistic guy who has been giving his all to keep Swindon in League One, but I fear that he and his team mates won’t be rewarded for their efforts.

Swindon have now won only one game in twenty and need to win their four remaining fixtures to have any chance of staying up … an even then it may not be enough.

My piece in this morning's paper

Winger Ritchie and manager Paul Hart both indicated they were still hopeful after this defeat against play-off chasing MK Dons, but they became increasingly desperate as the game wore on and pumped numerous long balls forward to striker Calvin Andrew. The visiting defence – including former Town skipper Sean O’Hanlon who scored the 17th minute winner – just lapped it up and never really looked too worried.

Even if Andrew had converted a first time injury time effort from 4 yards instead of striking the woodwork, I felt the Dons could have moved up a gear and re-taken the lead if they had wanted.

As much as it pains me to write this, Swindon are down and have the rest of the season to try and salvage some pride.

Hart has got them putting in the effort, but once they cross the white line it’s down to them and I’m afraid there aren’t enough cool heads out there at the moment.

Worryingly for the Swindon faithful, life in League Two may not be any easier.

Thirteen players will be out of contract at the end of this season and you would think that many of them will be off rather than taking a cut in wages and while some Robins fans might be thinking “good riddance to them”, they also need to start wondering about the quality of their replacements and whether they’ll be good enough to go for promotion in what will be a very competitive division with the likes of Plymouth, Bradford and dare I say, Oxford, also going for promotion.

Key to success will of course be the appointment of the manager.

Paul Hart is currently in pole position, but may well be tainted by relegation – although arguably he had a thankless task on his hands.

Another name doing the rounds is that of Paul Trollope who was sacked by Bristol Rovers earlier in the season, but did guide the Gasheads to promotion from League Two and – along with his connections to the club. Trolls started out at Swindon, although never made the first team while his dad John made 770 appearances for the club over twenty year period and is still highly regarded there.

It’s going to be a summer of change at the County Ground, but who would have predicted it last summer when the side turned out at Wembley and were pipped to a Championship place by Millwall?

The clipping from yesterday's News of the World