Out like Flynn - but will sacking the manager change Swindon's fortunes?
Ink Sport Focus - Sam Morshead reflects on the changes at STFC as well as looking back at the time he, himself, was banned from the County Ground
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What does it mean for Swindon now Michael Flynn has been shown the door?
By Sam Morshead
And so the axe falls on Michael Flynn.
Swindon Town have sacked their manager at the end of a stretch of dreadful results, uninspiring performances, and with the club in danger of registering a historic low finish in the EFL.
Flynn’s departure comes little more than two months after he was given an extended stay at the County Ground, though it is expected that a clause within his contract will mean the club do not have to pay out compensation for the entirety of the term.
That is just as well, as – nine short months after ending Jody Morris’s tenure early – there is evidently little flexibility in the budget to cater for two-and-a-half years of wages.
Assistant Wayne Hatswell leaves Town, too.
The decision to part company with the pair midway through a transfer window, and after several players had already been signed, points to Flynn’s input into recruitment being only partial and, unlike in other eras when manager was king, it is not so strategically significant when it comes to off-the-field issues.
Still, question marks can be raised over the timing.
Since the end of September, Swindon have won four of 22 matches, conceding 53 goals in the process. In the bottom tier of English league football.
A small squad, riddled by injuries, has been asked to do too much too often.
Furthermore, the systems which have evidently not been working from a defensive point of view have been retained.
If Albert Einstein was a Swindon fan (or alive), he would be tearing out his moustache. Madness is getting the same results over and over again yet sticking with a formula. Insanity is doing it after losing 60 per cent of your league goals in the January transfer window.