NATHAN Thompson has conceded that the Swindon Town squad of 2016-17 were simply not good enough to beat the drop in League One.

Having spent his entire professional career so far at Town, Thompson finally bid farewell to the club last week after signing terms with Portsmouth ahead of the expiration of his current Swindon contract at the end of this month.

The 26-year-old’s departure comes in the wake of Town’s relegation to League Two last season – an outcome that still leaves the former club captain crestfallen.

Thompson admits the 2-1 home defeat at the hands of Scunthorpe United on the penultimate weekend of the campaign was a gut-wrenching experience as it ultimately sealed the demise of a Swindon side that flattered to deceive.

“It was one of the most uncomfortable days. I remember the final whistle going, it was a horrible, horrible feeling. If I’m honest, I never want to go through it and experience it again,” Thompson told the Advertiser.

“In terms of football, there is not much worse than getting relegated. It’s the accumulation of 46 games throughout the season of not being good enough.

“Players will know, looking back over the course of the year, knowing we didn’t perform well enough and it cost it.

“We probably all felt that we were too good to go down. Every time we spoke to an opposition team, they would say: ‘The way you played, you passed us off the park’. But we weren’t getting the results and it just wasn’t good enough.”

Town’s relegation to the fourth tier comes just two years after they came within one win of securing a place in the Championship, ultimately losing the 2015 League One play-off final to Preston North End.

Just as seems likely to be the case this year, a host of star names left the club that summer and Thompson admits the last few years at the County Ground have been like a rollercoaster with three different managers at the helm.

“It was turbulent, it was difficult with the high turnover of players that year,” said Thompson.

“As we had come so close, the boys had wanted to move on as they wanted to taste it [a higher level].

“You kind of understand that but we replaced those players quite late into the day and the team didn’t click. We went on a long winless run and that saw the end of Mark Cooper.

“Martin Ling then came in, we had a little bit of a resurgent run. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out for him, and then Luke Williams got his opportunity as well.

“I think Luke was keen to stay in the background. He had done a lot of coaching prior to that. I know he didn’t want to take it initially but he came with such credentials. So many good people spoke so highly of him that it was a natural progression for him to take the job. It was tough the way it worked out for him.

“It was difficult because we had made mistakes in terms of recruitment and when that is the case, the manager takes the blame. It was difficult for him to take.”