Swindon Town struggled to find their feet after conceding an early goal during their 1-0 defeat against Eastleigh in a pre-season friendly.

Soloman Nwabuokei scored early after the ball ricocheted in off Jack Bycroft’s back and Town struggled to fashion the chances to turn the tables.

With one game to go until the action starts for real at Chesterfield, what did the game tell us about where Swindon are?

To state the blatantly obvious, there is a lack of creativity.

I won’t dwell on this because I have been very consistent throughout that this was my worry, but it is tough to avoid. Swindon started poorly but improved after half time and they got into plenty of good areas around the penalty box but nobody seemed to have the lockpicking ability to get from there to a big chance. There was some good crossing and some very wayward crossing, but I can only think of one moment from Ollie Clarke when something was created centrally. Swindon know this and have known it all along, quality creative midfielders available permanently this summer were thin on the ground and now hopefully they can find the right loan signing to help out.

The set pieces seem so wrong but feel so Wright.

Earlier in pre-season I remarked upon my disgust at seeing a centre-back in Will Wright taking set pieces, it felt very Harry Kane at Euro 2016. In a Football Cliches kind of way, it does not butter any parsnips, but at the same time, he is a fantastic set-piece taker. All of his balls from corners, free kicks, and throw-ins were right on the money and more should have come from them. The closest Town came all match was Clarke charging through a crowd of bodies to head narrowly over. Swindon have enough height that it is not a problem that Wright is taken out of the middle and once they get more time to practice then they could be a regular threat.

The work without the ball remains very impressive.

Another thing that has been a consistent strong point in pre-season has been the pressing, which already looks very well drilled. Eastleigh were trying to play out but regularly had to go long into Paul McCallum and Scott Quigley and eventually gave up playing goal kicks short. Aaron Drinan gets through a lot of running in these games, but everyone looks to be dialled into their task when Swindon don’t have possession. Once some games have been played, I will definitely write a longer piece on this, but Town have been very effective at isolating one defender and forcing a pass where another red shirt can jump and create an error.

The jury remains out on the strike partnership.

In this game we saw all three strikers playing at the same time with Paul Glatzel used as a midfielder, something Marcus Bignot quickly said was not something they were trialling but a fitness decision. Harry Smith and Drinan have played together a lot during pre-season and despite their prior understanding, they haven’t been linking up too effectively. Both have done well at certain aspects of their game, but Smith has rarely been able to find Drinan when he wins the ball in the air and vice versa for when the Irishman makes a run in behind into the channels. We have seen Glatzel and Drinan combine well last season and the pace and guile of Glatzel makes him seem like a good fit alongside Smith. Simply based on what I have witnessed in pre-season, I am not sure the Smith-Drinan partnership is the one I would go with at Chesterfield.