WILDCATS head coach Ryan Aldridge hopes work done by the defence this week will ensure they don’t encounter the problems they did against Slough on Sunday.

Swindon lost 5-4 to the Jets from a winning position and Aldridge feels the visitors were handed too much space on the counter, something he is keen to eradicate ahead of the home clash with Manchester on Saturday (5.45pm) and the trip to Bracknell the following night (6pm).

“We know we’ve got to play smart in the defensive zone this weekend, our D were a bit flat-footed against Slough,” said Aldridge.

“When we were on offence the D were slow on the rush and then Slough had too much room to skate in. Our D were just too far back and were giving them easy entries.

“I think it was a little bit of complacency and taking it too easy, a little bit of laziness.

“They have got to move up with the play.

“But we’ve done a lot of drills on that this week so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

On this weekend’s games, Aldridge added: “Manchester have been missing their goalie (Steve Fone) lately but have been doing well, so I expect them to be the same as they always are. They are good on offence and have plenty of depth on their D.

“Bracknell work hard for 60 minutes and have a lot of good players, so we need to play a smart road game.”

Import Matias Perkkio, currently with his family in Finland following the death of his father, will not turn out for Wildcats this weekend.

Aldridge told the player to take more time as including him would mean leaving out a different import. Jan Melichar was the man to sit out proceedings the weekend before last but with fellow D-man Joe Baird struggling with injury, the head coach is keen to include Melichar.

Whether he plays or not, Baird anticipates two difficult games despite the contrasting positions in the table of Swindon’s opponents.

“It’s going to be a tough weekend, but then they all are,” he said. “We play very well against the big teams and we’d like to think we can take points off Manchester if we play our best, but with a few bad bounces you never know.

“Bracknell seem to have our number a little bit. Everyone has a bogey team and Bracknell are ours.

“With the results we’ve had against other teams, realistically we should be looking to take points off them, but that’s not always the case.”