Phil Brown: Swindon Town sack manager after eight months in charge

Phil Brown won 10 and lost 11 of his 32 games in charge of Swindon Town

Swindon Town have sacked manager Phil Brown with the club in 17th place in League Two.

Assistant manager Neil MacDonald is also leaving the County Ground with immediate effect.

Brown succeeded David Flitcroft in March and led them to a ninth-placed finish in League Two last season.

Despite beating non-league York City in the FA Cup on Saturday, Swindon have won just once in their last eight games in the fourth tier.

Brown, who led Hull City to promotion to the Premier League in 2008 for the first time in the club's history and took Southend into League One in 2015, signed a two-year deal at Swindon in May.

"Swindon Town Football Club would like to put on record its thanks for the efforts of Phil and Neil in their time at SN1, and wish them all the best in their future endeavours," a club statement read.

'It's not really worked'

The decision means Swindon are left to look for a fifth manager in three years.

Flitcroft was in charge for just nine months following his appointment at the start of last season, having succeeded Luke Williams who led the side from the end of December 2015 until the end of the 2016-17 campaign.

Prior to Williams' appointment, Martin Ling was in charge for just two months before resigning due to the "stresses of the job".

"The league position is a problem when you're meant to be challenging for promotion," BBC Wiltshire's Swindon commentator Andrew Hawes told BBC Sport.

"He's (Brown) partially recruited and and partially inherited an unbalanced squad, there's a lack of goals among the forwards and relative inexperience in the defence.

"If you put those together it's not really worked."

Where do Swindon go now?

Swindon Town was the sixth club Phil Brown had managed, having previously had spells at Southend, Preston, Hull, Derby and Bolton

Immediately prior to Ling's appointment in November 2015, chairman and former player Lee Power had a three-game spell as caretaker boss.

Add to that the recruitment for a short while of former Tottenham and Aston Villa manager Tim Sherwood as director of football - under whose watch the club were relegated from League One in 2017 - and there has been little consistency at the top.

"They need a more coherent long-term strategy," Hawes added.

"The club seems to flip-flop between identities. They've tried to bring through players and then sell them, and that worked for a bit.

"The last two appointments have been managers who have won promotion out of League Two, but had inexperienced players and that hasn't worked either."