Adebayo’s strike puts Brown on cloud nine

SWINDON boss Phil Brown was full of praise for his Swindon side’s spirit after overcoming the loss of Kyle Knoyle to pick up their first clean sheet of the season and pick up a win over Morecambe.

On-loan Fulham man Elijah Adebayo was Swindon’s hero with the only goal of the game after 26 minutes.

Marc Richards provided the assist with a neat lay-off behind Luke Conlan and the lone striker ran onto the ball and drilled a low shot under Barry Roche.

Eight minutes later Knoyle was sent off for a studs-up challenge on Aaron Wildig that saw a straight red card, but from there Swindon defended superbly and Luke McCormick made several fine saves to earn the Robins the points.

Swindon’s defensive display earned the plaudits of boss Brown. He said: “I’m delighted with the three points and the clean sheet, but I was pleased with the mentality we showed after the sending off.

“I took a chance with a young back four today and we had to swap it around after the red card, but everyone did their job superbly.

“The aim was to see it through, but we did more than that in the end and we probably had the best chances of the game and should have won by a bigger margin to be honest.

“This is always a tough place to come and Morecambe played some good football, but I think the red card hurt them more than it hurt us. It seemed to affect the way they were playing more than us.

“They started dithering on the ball and that made it easier for us. We kept our focus and held on.”

Morecambe boss Jim Bentley said he felt his side “bottled it’’ as they lost for the sixth time in seven games.

He said: “We played some fantastic football at times, but couldn’t hit the target and I just feel numb.

“We had plenty of opportunities to get in shots, but turned them down and then started to rush things when players were in better positions and it is frustrating.

“The red card seemed to affect the way we were playing.

“We had some real momentum at the end of the first half and their keeper made a brilliant save, but after the break we just didn’t test them enough. We just didn’t take advantage of the extra man.”