Bristol Rovers vs Swindon Town
(Sat 24th Oct, 12:30PM UK - Sky Sports)
If you’ve seen a lot of cobwebs up the sides of people’s homes recently, don’t worry. Nobody’s left the door open on Oxford’s trophy cabinet and let them all blow away - it’s just Halloween season! In keeping with the Halloween spirit, the Memorial Stadium plays host to a dead man walking this weekend as Ian Holloway’s (yes, still!) Swindon Town travel to face the Gas. While the quality of the football we may be about to be subjected to could be questionable, this game will no doubt generate some all-time great post-match media quotes from two of the twenty first century’s great orators in Holloway and Steve Evans. And, really, what more do you want from League Two? Two of the pre-season favourites whose fortunes have turned as of late face off in this weekend’s Big Bet - can either team treat their fans to a victory, or will they trick us all into sitting through another turgid affair?
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Steve Evans recently claimed in an interview that if he’d been in charge at Rovers for the last few years then the club would be in the Championship by now. He’s been in charge for all of this season and they’re 16th in League Two, so that tracks.
Fortunately for (formerly) big Steve Evans, his opposite number has overshadowed his ludicrous claims with some of his usual own-brand media day word salad garbage. Holloway is lovely and charming when everything’s going peachy, but it just becomes a bit pathetic and sad when it eventually, and it always does eventually, hits the fan. He now, appropriately for the season, resembles a man in a rubbish Ian Holloway costume. Swindon are sort of playing like a Holloway team, and he is sort of being silly and fun in the media, but it all feels like a cheap imitation compared to his glory days. The Robins are now in late-stage Holloway and it’s all but certain to collapse at any moment. Not that I’m relishing it, but I’ve had a dreadful start to my pre-season predictions as it stands, and this call might be the only one I get right:
6. Ian Holloway will finally lose his job because of a mad post-match rant.
One more zombie impression is all I need, I can feel it.
Another, now rather unfortunate, prediction I made after rubbing my crystal ball was that Bristol Rovers would taste the glory of automatic promotion this season, and didn’t they start well? I could do with Evans doing what he does best and turning round this sinking ship before I look like a total fraud come my end of season look back. Ideally, that could start now.
Will Evans’ Rovers get their foot back on the gas? Or will Swindon resurrect their old selves and save Ian Holloway’s job? It’s a huge game that could decide the fate of these two sides’ seasons in this week’s Big Bet!
Form
Woof. Where to begin.
Heavily tipped for promotion by the experts (and myself), Bristol Rovers flew out of the traps with 4 free-scoring wins from their first 5 games. Everything was looking peachy, what could possibly go wrong? Well, they’ve now won just once in 8 outings in all competitions, including 6 losses in the league in which they scored just 3 goals. That is a fairly bizarre drop off a cliff for the Gas, but the underlying data suggests they might not be quite as bad as it looks. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still bad, just not Swindon bad.
They had the better chances in their most recent loss at home to league leaders Salford, and would’ve come away with a point had they not missed a penalty in that game. They were on course to take at least a point, maybe even all three, from second placed Barnet before a red card saw them throw away the game late on and lose 3-1, and they had more than enough opportunities away at third-placed Crewe to come away with a point on the balance of play. Grimsby and Gillingham gave them a whooping, but you’re allowed to lose games away from home against decent sides, and Shrewsbury dug in and did well to restrict them going forward. Essentially, they’ve been on the end of a couple of bad ones, but this losing run has seen them fall to unfortunate defeats to the three best sides in the league. It’s not all doom and gloom, and you can definitely see how they could get back on track just as quickly as they’ve fallen off of it.
Swindon’s situation is basically the opposite. Their results have been marginally better than those of Rovers, but the numbers all suggest that they’ve been absolutely diabolical this season, which is just a continuation to their horrific end of season form from last year. They have 1 win and 2 draws from their last 7 league games, managing a 3-1 win away at high-flying Barnet last time out. Quite how that happened, nobody is really sure.
Barnet had 72% of the ball, 22 shots to Swindon’s 11, 11 on target to Swindon’s 5, and 47 touches in the opposition box to Swindon’s 21. And lost 3-1. They were 3-0 down before half-time! It’s an absolute freak result that owes a lot to goalkeeper Connor Ripley who made an astonishing 11 saves and prevented 4.54 goals. That and Aaron Drinan’s sublime finishing skills, they don’t leave you no matter how mad your manager is.
Swindon have been in games without ever really threatening to win them for a long time, and their one win in recent weeks was a freak event. Where as Rovers have been threatening to win games for ages without ever proving themselves actually capable. This should be a fascinating, if ugly, match up.
Head-to-head
These two have hovered between the lower two tiers of English football for most of their recent histories, and have met each other on plenty of occasions in that time.
Their last 10 meetings have seen just 2 draws, 2 Rovers wins and 6 wins for Swindon! Someone’s got a bogey team. Bristol Rovers haven’t beat Swindon in the league since 2017, and their most recent victory came in and EFL trophy match that saw Swindon get 2 red cards in the first half. It’s not promising stuff for the Gas.
Last season we saw a 3-0 Swindon win when Rovers were in their pre-Evans early-season relegation battle, and a 1-1 draw later on when Evans had come in to steer HMS Bristol Rovers to safety.
Recent history favours the Robins, or is it about time Bristol Rovers landed a haymaker in this fixture?
Key Matchup
Fabrizio Cavegn vs Aaron Drinan
As with any game between two teams that are desperate for a win, both of which are helmed by emotionally charged managers, there’s a good chance this could just turn into a slug-fest. Which we all want to see. In that case, it’s down to these two men up front for their respective teams to do the business and finish when it matters, and Drinan has shown himself to be much more capable than his opponent so far this season.
Last season’s golden boot winner has picked up where he left off, scoring 8 in 12 despite his team’s shortcomings. Simply put, if you think Swindon are bad with Aaron Drinan up top, imagine how bad they’d be without him. He’s an excellent finisher, but also a hard worker, and he buzzes around the pitch supporting his teammates and trying to get his side back on the ball to launch a counter attack. He’s the ideal Holloway striker, even when the going is as tough as it gets.
Cavegn is scoring at about the same rate as last season, but many hoped that this would be the year he kicked on. 11 in 43 last year has become 3 in 11 so far, a fine goal return if you’re into that kind of thing. Personally, I want to see fireworks. If Bristol Rovers are going to turn this around and get themselves promoted, they need their main centre forward to just score some goals. How hard can it be? Maybe he should take a leaf out of Drinan’s book and start working a bit harder for his team if he’s not going to put the ball in the net anyway.
Preview
I am really looking forward to this, Ian’s in quite a sadistic way. There’s every chance this could turn nasty, and we all love to see a bit of needle on a Saturday afternoon. Anything to distract me from my own team’s performances, please!
I’ve weighed up the options, and I don’t think there’s any clear prediction that feels safe here. I hate to say it, but the nerds have gotten to me. I’m ignoring results and backing Bristol Rovers to do the business because that’s what the data tells me to do! Home win! And I don’t feel good about it.
Who have you got in the Big Bet this week? Is it Ollie’s band of merry men or do you back Steve Evans to get his side back on the road to promotion?