NOW is not the moment to listen to the sirens. Shuffling out of the County Ground on Tuesday, you could already hear their wailing: ‘get it up there for a big forward to knock-down’, ‘bring in an old head in midfield’ and ‘we need a Plan B’.

Like a three-year-old drawing a house, we football fans struggle with perspective. Rochdale was Swindon’s first home defeat and only the second loss in the league. It is something to learn from, not a reason to throw out a winning formula.

Rochdale executed their plan expertly. Each idea ripped from the playbooks of managers who’ve faced technically superior sides: be compact, play on the counter, rotate tactical fouls and block quick free-kicks. They disrupted our flow, and it worked, in combination with Swindon’s balsa-thin squad. Even then the win required inspired goalkeeping from Conrad Logan.

But now is the time to review and to re-asses. To watch the videos, to correct the errors in marking, to explain to Yaser Kasim that the odd header won’t hurt. It is not time to be distracted by the myth of ‘Plan B’. It is an idea that swirls around football terraces as if chasing a game demands a radical change of style mid-match. Few coaches even try it – bar Andy King and his love of chucking on Antoine Van De Linden as a very makeshift striker – as it rarely works.

It is also disruptive. Pep Guardiola once bought a plan B in Zlatan Ibrahimovic and saw his fluid team weakened by an expensive soloist. The Swede was sold, Barca became one of the best sides ever seen and Zlatan’s nose was put out of joint – something which should require the force of a thousand jack hammers.

Even the greatest comeback in Swindon’s recent history wasn’t the result of a dramatic change of plan. When Glenn Hoddle turned a 4-1 scoreline into a 4-6 win at Birmingham, he didn’t use either of his substitutes. Instead, he trusted himself and his players to fashion Plan A, version 1.2. That inner voice is the one Mark Cooper needs to listen to, not the sirens.