Swindon boss Garner impressed by 'very strong' Cobblers after watching Newport victory

Swindon Town manager Ben Garner was left impressed by what he saw from the Cobblers after watching their midweek victory at Newport County.

The Robins, currently eighth, head to Sixfields this weekend hoping to become only the third team to score past Brady's Northampton in the league this season.

"They've had a good start to the season," Garner said. "Defensively they are very strong and they've had five clean sheets in seven games, so they are very well organised.

"I watched their game on Tuesday night at Newport and they are very resilient, very structured and they posed a threat constantly throughout the game.

"They are very, very good off set-pieces, they have been very effective from set-pieces this season and from long throws, so we know it is going to be a really tough game."

But, now under new ownership following a summer besieged by off-field problems, Swindon themselves have started the season well and will leapfrog their opponents with victory on Saturday.

And the stats spell out the clash of styles that should be on display at Sixfields. Swindon boast both the highest average possession (60%) and the best pass completion rate (80%) in the league this season.

They have also played the most short passes and least long passes. Northampton rank 19th and 2nd in the same categories.

"We're unbeaten away from home in all competitions and we want to keep that record as long as we can," Garner added. "We will certainly be going there to win the game.

"We're focussing on ourselves and we need to be better in what we do in terms of reducing the effects of what the other team does, and that's been our big focus this week and that will be our focus moving forward as we head into future games.

"We're looking forward to the game and I'm fully expecting a much stronger performance this week than against Port Vale last week.

"We're not going to go away from the way that we play, that's our identity and that's the style of play we're going to have, but we just need to get better at doing it which we will do.

"We're happy with the start but we now want to push on, we want to improve from here and we want to keep getting better and that starts tomorrow."