Swindon Town First-Team Head Coach, Scott Lindsey, says he’d be more concerned if his side weren’t playing well and winning games during pre-season, and praised some encouraging individual performances as Town suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat at the hands of Eastleigh on Saturday.
Despite dominating the 90-minutes at The Silverlake Stadium, The Spitfires held strong to deny Town on numerous occasions to emerge winners on a sweltering afternoon in Hampshire.
Danny Whitehall scored the only goal of the game in the first ten minutes, but despite using the ball well and controlling the game for the majority, Town were unable to find the back of the net as Lee Bradbury’s side got men behind the ball and defended resolutely.
Speaking to the media after the game, Lindsey admitted he’d be more concerned if his side weren’t playing good football and winning all their friendlies.
“I’m pleased with the performance again by the lads, which I know will always sound a little strange when you’ve lost a game, but we were unlucky today not to have scored a few and won the match comfortably.
“We passed the ball well throughout, apart from a few short spells in the first half, which we addressed at half-time and the players took it all on board.
“We controlled the game, looked good on the ball and our movement was great, and the fact we didn’t manage a goal today doesn’t worry me – there’s still a hell of a lot to come from this team and we must use these games to learn.
“We’ve brought in a lot of new players and it’s important these games are used to bed them in and we keep testing the system we want to implement – I’m confident everything will fall into place, especially with the positive attitude my players have.”
The Town boss, who has now been in the job just under a month, also said his sides pre-season will end on Tuesday as he looks to turn his attentions to shape and tactics ahead of the Cardiff City game next weekend.
“We know we are still a couple of players short which we are hoping to sort this week, so once we have the squad in place and we know who we have at our disposal, we’ll turn our attentions to how we want to play and use Cardiff as a real test, which it will be.
“We’ll up the training over the coming days, taking the heat into consideration, and then use Thursday and Friday to sit down with the players and go into more depth around our system.”
Lindsey also took time to comment on his most recent signings, as the club tied up deals for Saidou Khan and Remeao Hutton in the week.
“It’s great to have both players onboard, and good to see them feature against Eastleigh.
“Obviously Remeao came on earlier than planned with the injury to Reece (Devine), but I thought he did well and was really positive driving forward, getting some good crosses into the box.
“Saidou did well too. He offers us something a little different in the midfield by breaking up play and you saw him crash into a few tackles today. He’s a good technician and also has a bit of bite, which are key attributes for us.”
