The Swindon director of football did not appear to be present to witness Conor Thomas’s late winner over Millwall which gave the Robins a glimmer of hopeHow do you galvanise a callow, dejected team that appears to be sleepwalking into League Two? It was a question Luke Williams had to ponder before his Swindon Town team faced Millwall on Saturday. They had lost four games in a row, three of them to goals in the dying minutes, and were seven points from safety. When Williams assessed the mood at training early in the week, he sensed that hope was ebbing away. Two days before the game he told them exactly that: it seemed, the head coach informed his squad, as...
The prolific form of Chris Wood, the New Zealand centre-forward, could finally see Leeds United return to the Premier League after years of frustrationThere is still a temptation to think every day Leeds United spend outside the top flight is another day of underachievement. The club’s past as one of English football’s great powers still tricks you into the idea that their current status as Championship promotion contenders is the least you can expect.In reality Leeds are overachieving this season. Last summer Garry Monk took over a side with a few decent players but a recent history of mediocrity: this is a team who have finished between 13th and 15th in each of the past five dispiriting seasons and, quite...
The new signing continued his rich vein of scoring form but defensive frailty cost Saints dear as Manchester United won the League Cup final 3-2Manolo Gabbiadini probably does not know too much about the late Bobby Stokes, who became one of Southampton’s greatest heroes after scoring against Manchester United in a Wembley showpiece. That was in the FA Cup final of 1976, when Stokes conjured the only goal of the game to secure the club’s first piece of major silverware.Gabbiadini did everything within his power to update those old images; to reacquaint the club with that glorious feeling and his performance was the outstanding facet of a gripping EFL Cup final. The January signing from Napoli scored twice to haul his team...
After their side beat Bristol City for a first Championship win since 2 December, supporters await with trepidation the return of owner Fawaz al-HasawiFawaz al-Hasawi is expected to return to Nottingham this week, with the whiff of sulphur from the flares of Saturday’s protest against him still hanging in the air on the banks of the Trent. Nottingham Forest fans want him out of the club he purchased four and a half years ago but the Kuwaiti, who has performed more three-point turns than a learner driver, does not appear willing to leave and his motives for remaining become less clear by the minute.Not long after the shrieks of relief at Ben Osborn’s creative flair, which brought a first victory...
A vital point and rare clean sheet may have felt like a victory of sorts at Meadow Lane, but with a new broom in the boardroom sweeping in hope, their fledgling manager will need fortune to favour expectationsKevin Nolan, appointed on Thursday, was all but anointed on Saturday. Notts County’s manager had arrived at Meadow Lane the day after Alan Hardy’s takeover from Ray Trew was completed and their first game in charge was the lunchtime derby at home to the Stags of Mansfield. After 10 successive league defeats County were the ones in a rut and the goalless draw was a triumph, their first clean sheet since October.Two hours later Cheltenham’s defeat of Accrington Stanley sent the world’s oldest...