Swindon deserved shock victory at Barrow

Gavin Gunning was delighted as he watched his Swindon side upset the form book with a 2-0 League Two victory at Barrow but insisted their unlikely win was well merited.

Not that opposite number Pete Wild or Barrow fans wanted to argue after their team was second best in virtually all departments.

But for Bluebirds’ goalkeeper Paul Farman’s heroics, Swindon’s margin of victory could easily have been wider.

In the end, goals in a 10-minute spell before half-time from Williams Kokolo and Paul Glatzel were sufficient for Town to leave Holker Street with victory.

“I came here a few times in my playing career and got skittled with the wind and the rain,” said interim boss Gunning.

“People might have thought we would come here and be a soft touch and expect us to get walloped.

“The realism is, we played some good stuff and manipulated the ball well.

“We came to a team who are probably guaranteed to be in the play-offs and we were the better team.

“We hustled and bustled them all game and they didn’t have answers. In the first five or six minutes we could have scored two goals and they could have had two.

“It was an open start. But we then gained the composure. We have got to be happy. We scored two goals and kept a clean sheet.”

Kokolo’s goal was his first for Swindon and first since netting for Burton in February 2022.

Former Liverpool youth player Glatzel now has four in four – and six in total – since moving to the County Ground.

“He could have had another one just before it,” added Gunning. “We had a few half-chances where we butchered the ball.

“He is a fantastic player. He just has to keep improving those little bits so he can get to the next level.”

Barrow’s Cole Stockton had a goal disallowed for offside in the first half, while he and team-mate Dom Telford had efforts scooped off the line before Kokolo set Swindon on the road to victory.

“We looked nervy,” admitted home boss Pete Wild, not the result he wanted on his 100th game in charge.

“We looked like a team trying to get over the line. We didn’t play with any quality.

“It would be easy for me to start criticising players but that’s not me. We are in it for the good days and in it for the bad days.

“I said to the players, it is a 10-and-a-half-month season. You have been unbelievable, so please don’t think you have cracked it and got over the line.

“There is so much hard work to do in the next two-and-a-half weeks. We need to just get over the line and get what we deserve.”