Swindon Town

LUKE Williams says that his side are showing their ability to be able to adapt to situations ‘on the fly’ in matches as they prepare to welcome Wigan Athletic to the County Ground on Friday.

After earning points against teams in-and-around the division’s Play-Off places, Town’s Head Coach admitted that it would be pleasing to come out of the packed Easter schedule with healthy points return.

“It’s a sign of a team that’s able to respond to events live which is the most difficult thing,” he said. “You have a plan going into the game but the players need to be able to react to things on the pitch in a moments’ notice and I think they’ve shown they’ve been able to do that against two very good sides that are at the top end of the table.

“There will be an extra buzz around (the stadium) because of the attention when you have the Sky cameras around so I think the boys will notice some changes but we’ll try to make sure as a group of staff that we try and take that pressure off of them so they can concentrate on performing.”

He added: “We’ve both got tools in our armoury to hurt each other and we have to be mindful of that but we’re backing our front players to be able to do the business for us. This is a very, very tough game. They’re probably the most difficult team in the division to play against so it would be great to come out of this block of games with a decent return of points. Certainly the next four games are going to come round very quickly would be great to be in a good position after that.”

Speaking to the media before the televised clash on Good Friday, Williams provided an update on injuries in the squad after both Lawrence Vigouroux and Raphael Rossi-Branco were side-lined last weekend.

“Raphael is going to be involved in the game,” he said. “We know that we may be losing Jamie Sendles-White through international duty so we don’t want to put Raphael in too quickly and risk him being injured when Jamie is about to leave the group. There’s not one player in that backline that there is any doubt over whether they can do the job and how good they are. It’s a nice thing to have in the squad. There is strength there in depth.

“Lawrence is still struggling to get full range of movement in his leg and we’ve got to make sure that’s not a problem before he goes back onto the pitch. He won’t be able to kick properly and there’s always a chance of making that situation worse if he goes in too soon. He’s still touch and go.

“Drissa (Traore) has been training well and is back in the group. He will play a part over this Easter period. Yaser (Kasim) is doing very well but there is still a bit of pain in the knee. We have to make sure that’s gone before we can progress him to working out on the pitch.”