Town Head Coach Luke Williams spoke to members of the local press in the wake of his side’s 3-0 defeat to Charlton Athletic earlier this afternoon. Here are the key points from what he had to say…
ON THE RESULT AND PERFORMANCE:
“The points didn’t make any difference to us but the idea for us was to try and have a look at some players who are potentially going to be involved here next season. I don’t want to talk too much about players’ individual performances right now.
“We saw some positive things and some things that will need to be worked on.
“Pretty much to a man the players tried to impose themselves on a good team and they put the effort in that was required."
ON JESSE STARKEY’S DEBUT:
“It was a tough place for him to come and make his debut and overall he should be pleased with what he did.
“We need to watch the game back and be able to assess really properly what we think about the performance.”
ON WILL HENRY’S PERFORMANCE:
“There were some nervy moments for Will but he showed real character and he made some great saves."
ON THE CHANGES MADE TO THE TEAM TODAY:
“We had a combination of players that are under contract still and players that could potentially be Swindon players again in the future, so it was a chance for a lot of people to show in a competitive game against a good side what they are capable of and how much they want to be a part of things going forward.
“We made a couple of reinforcements later on in the game with Jon Obika, who we know is out of contract, but being able to put Scott Twine on the pitch with Jon was a sensible decision.
“We didn’t have as many loan players available which is one of the main reasons why Islam Feruz couldn’t even be considered as an option off the bench with all the loan slots being used up on the pitch.
“We don’t know for sure what the future will hold and it was a good chance for Islam to impress again.
“He may end up as a Swindon player again and just with the fact that we had space to put Islam in, it was an opportunity to take."
ON LESSONS LEARNED THIS SEASON:
“The change in rules with the loan window made a big difference to us because we’ve often recruited using that emergency loan window after we’ve had a look at what we think we’ve got in the building to see if it is going to be good enough.
“I think we’ve used that extremely well in the four years that I’ve been at the club and this is the first season that it hasn’t been an option, so perhaps we didn’t prepare correctly and deal with it.
“That is one thing we could maybe learn from the season.
“I’m not somebody who turns my back on things and my understanding of life is that if you are employed then you work as hard as you possibly can until you are told not to.”
