Super-sub Collins prefers starting spot (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

SWINDON TOWN: Super-sub Collins prefers starting spot

6:00am Friday 22nd March 2013 in Sport By Sam Morshead

BORED ON THE BENCH: James Collins

JAMES Collins does not want to become known as the Swindon Town super-sub, despite scoring nearly half his goals this season after coming off the bench.

The striker has netted 16 times this term of which seven have come after he failed to make the starting line-up - including crucial strikers against Colchester and Coventry and four in the 5-0 thumping of Portsmouth on New Year’s Day.

His latest big impact as a sub came in the 2-0 win at Yeovil on Tuesday, when he netted with the final kick of the game to match his goals haul of last year.

Given his growing reputation and manager Kevin MacDonald’s increasing tendency to favour a 4-5-1 formation, Collins is rapidly being moulded into the Robins’ very own version of David Fairclough or Ole Gunnar Solksjaer. It’s not a comparison he’s keen to have made.

He said: “Obviously I don’t want to be known as a super-sub, I’d like to play as many games as I can but the gaffer has come in and he feels that five in midfield is the way he wants to play.

“Whether it’s me, Andy or Adam up front we just need to be patient and do the best we can when we come on.

“The gaffer has come in and he feels that maybe one up front and five in midfield is the way to win games. We can’t argue with that because on Tuesday it worked.

“For whoever is not in the starting line-up it’s obviously frustrating because everyone wants to play every game, but to be patient and coming on and scoring a goal is the only way you can answer your critics.”

Town go into the visit of Notts County this afternoon looking for their first win in five home matches.

The last Swindon victory at the County Ground came against Collins’ former club Shrewsbury, and the forward can’t pin his finger on why the Robins have been so meek on familiar soil this season.

He said: “We were unfortunate with the penalty against Walsall because that was never a penalty. If that didn’t happen then we would have won the game 2-1. Hartlepool and Bury I think were two blips.

“Last year the home form was really good but this year the gaffer might be right, maybe we need a bit of patience and now we’ve got as couple of good results behind us hopefully we can kick on with our home form.”