YASER Kasim thinks Swindon Town can play with freedom for the remaining eight games of the season, after admitting that he and his teammates did not deal well with the pressure of a play-off push.

Town sit seven points off the top six after their 1-0 victory over Preston North End on Saturday, a win which pushed them over the 50-point mark which usually guarantees League One safety.

Having sat in the play-off positions until just before Christmas, midtable mediocrity has been hard to stomach for some fans and Kasim accepted that Swindon struggled under the weight of expectation their excellent first half of the term created.

However, the Iraqi is confident the Robins squad will learn from their experiences this season and use those lessons to maximum effect in 2014/15.

“I think we can play with a bit of freedom,” he told the Advertiser. “It’s funny because when you come into football you want to play freely and have fun and stuff but the pressure somehow just builds up.

“We’ve got to keep fresh throughout the season. When we were fighting for the play-offs maybe we didn’t do that for a little bit and it got too much on us.

“Now the pressure is not necessarily on us and we can just play a bit, have fun and know if we do well we can do that while the pressure is on us as well.

“We started well, played some good football and suddenly we get pegged back a bit and people around you start doubting a bit. The you don’t know what to do.

“Personally, next season I know what to do.”

Town go in search of their first away win in four attempts at Tranmere Rovers tonight. With the Prenton Park club struggling towards the bottom of the table, Kasim suggested Town might have to tweak the way they play to secure all three points.

He said: “It depends what the management look at and think we can change or what strengths Tranmere have. Maybe we might have to change the formation a little bit, which we did (on Saturday) from last week. It depends how they operate and how we can utilise own abilities against them.”