LUKE Williams admits that it isn’t easy to prepare a side to face a Rochdale outfit that constantly keep you guessing.

The two teams will meet for the fifth time in the space of 12 months when Swindon Town visit Spotland this afternoon, with Williams’ side having triumphed 3-0 over Dale at the County Ground less than five weeks ago.

The Swindon head coach has plenty of experience of coming up against Keith Hill’s men but says that formulating a plan for today’s renewed hostilities has been something of a head-scratcher, given Dale’s propensity for switching things up.

“I think, for sure, having come up against Keith Hill a number of times now; he’s a very deep thinker about football and about his team,” said Williams.

“If you look back through the teams he’s put out on the pitch, he’s changed players’ positions a lot. I mean, Joe Bunney’s playing left-back and he’s a centre-forward, and he’s doing it well.

“The boys at the front of the pitch have played right, left and down the middle.

“In the Rochdale game here, we worked on the lines that we were prepared to hold before we engaged the opposition and on the night, it worked well for us.

“I’ve watched their back-line defend really high and defend deep, I’ve watched the front players press and then let you have the ball, so they in play different ways.”

Town’s win over Dale in October was a tactical success, with Williams’ side profiting from standing off their opponents.

However, according to Swindon’s chief coach, there’s no guarantee that approach would work again, as demonstrated by their 2-0 loss to Walsall four days later.

Williams said: “What you’ve seen in the Rochdale performance is very similar lines of engagement to the ones that we had against Walsall in the following game but (Erhun) Oztumer scored a fantastic goal and the mentality changes, and then he scored a fantastic second – it’s one of the best goals I’ve seen in League One ever.

“In terms of the plan, it was very similar but moments in the game change it.”