Match report posted by John_  (view the full thread on the forum )

Swindon succumbed to their fifth away defeat of the season following a disappointing 2-0 defeat at Macclesfield Town.

I don't feel any real need to do a match report of sorts, I should really just be referring people to read back match summaries from Burton, Shrewsbury e.t.c to see what unfolded at Moss Rose this evening. It's becoming a regular pattern in as much as we can get on top in games during the first half, fail to score, and then seemingly disintegrate and get sucker-punched during the second half. It's doing my head in.
After a cagey opening five minutes the first half chance of the match came from the head of Diagne who glanced a header wide of goal.
The home side, who last weekend managed to get beat by Plymouth Argyle, were looking to bounce back and although they sit in a lower mid-table position, they have a reasonable home record with only 1 defeat in 5 thus far.
Eventually Swindon got their groove on and some of the build-up play, passing and distribution made Maccy look almost amateur. There were 3 incidents of note I can recall. I think the first two involved De Vita who came agonisingly close to giving the Town the lead. The first effort, following incisive creativity, saw the Italian's shot take a deflection and wrong foot the home keeper Veiga. As the ball seemed to be trickling into the corner, Veiga recovered his composure and was able to push the ball away low down to his right. Soon after De Vita saw a powerful header blocked by the home custodian as Town scented blood. This territorial domination culminated after 25 minutes with a Matt Ritchie long range howitzer that whizzed inches over the bar. Special mention to Ritchie who looked simply unplayable whilst we were in the ascendancy. I couldn't help but think another a zero or two will be put on his value in readiness for the January sales! Oh, whoops, did I just type that out loud!
The last 15 minutes of the first half sadly fizzled out into stalemate. Maccy kept it simple looking for avenues and channels to exploit. For our part, we rather disappointingly resorted to a few hoofballs towards Magera. The atmosphere from the Swindon contingent was now almost non-existant. I think everybody's energy levels had been expended just getting here! It was good to see 'Nobby' suddenly appear half an hour into the game - seemingly one of many stuck in the motorway traffic. He tried to rally the troops but was met by incredulous silence.

During half-time I came to the startling conclusion that if we could get a point from this game and every other away game, whilst continuing to batter all and sundry at the CG, then we'll be in the play-offs.... minimum. My genious revelation was sorely tested early into the second half when out of nowhere Phil Smith was subbed for Matty Lanzano?! Eh. Smith didn't look injured and in fact I don't think he even knew he was coming off as he was still instructing defenders at a Macclesfield set piece whilst the board was being held up. Anyway, I've since read that PDC said it was a 'groin' issue e.t.c but at the time I, and I'm sure others as well, couldn't help but think this was a strange and silly decision.

On the hour mark we fell behind. We were left flat-footed as a ball forward saw 'Gorgeous' (No, really that's what the Maccy P.A kept calling him) George Donnelly scamper away from the human tugboat Devera and fire a low shot back across goal into the net. Lovely stuff. Was this Macclesfield's first shot on target I pondered? Kudos to Caddis for racing like a 'Braveheart' across from right-back to try and narrow the angle and perhaps even get a block in...alas to no avail. The damage was done. 1-0. Even then I knew that was that. Even then.

New loanee Jervis had come on for Kerrouche and he was soon followed by Ridehalge for De Vita. I thought Jervis did okay. He did just as much positive stuff in his 30 minute cameo as Magera had done in the entire match. Oh F.A.O Magera - If you want to try and lob the keeper from 30 yards, it might help or even aid your attempt if the keeper was actually off his line, but as you embarrassingly shanked it wide in any case, this doesn't matter. Jesus.
To be fair we did try and up the tempo once again. We were looking more livelier and there were signs that Macclesfield were getting a wee bit stretched at the back. We started winning second balls and keeping the pressure and momentum in the opposition half.
The big talking point came ten minutes from time. After good build-up play Ritchie was superbly put in behind the defence. Onside, he rounded Veiga where upon the keeper seemingly clipped him. Ritchie, bless him, tried to stay on his feet as there was still a great chance he could prod home, but the impact could only cause him to stumble forward, lose his balance before he hit the turf. The ball was quickly hustled out for a throw-in. Of course pandimonium kicked off. Ritchie jumped to his feet and started remonstrating with the referee along with a half-a-dozen Town players. The Swindon crowd surged down the terrace to the front to offer their own unique Anglo-Saxon opinions! The referee, with a somewhat dazed look in his hillbilly eyes, thought he was doing us a favour by awarding an attacking throw-in!
Drama over, the game was put to bed minutes later when another defensive calamity left about 5 Swindon players to deal with somebody called Ross Draper. Not a problem, you would think? Well Draper had other ideas and let fly on the half volley that saw the ball end up in the same corner of the net that 'Gorgeous' George had found 20 minutes earlier.

And so another defeat on the road and it's all getting a bit too repetitive for my liking. We really need to address this situation as it's getting beyond joke. I guess we can add Macclesfield to the list of former non-league clubs who've 'done us over' recently. Granted, they also beat us back in 2006 but at least that season had a happy ending. I want this season to have a happy ending too.

P.S I hope we don't have to face any more former non-league outfits in the next couple of weeks..... oh.