PAOLO Di Canio has taken an unprompted swipe at Sir William Patey after the Swindon Town chairman upset his manager by suggesting more diligence needs to be taken in the signing of new players.

On Tuesday, Patey revealed that the transfer embargo hanging over the club had been lifted thanks to an injection of equity by majority shareholder Andrew Black, handing Di Canio the funds to bring in reinforcements.

However, he suggested that any further additions to the squad should be screened more thoroughly to prevent players carrying knocks from joining Town - as happened with the capture of Giles Coke from Sheffield Wednesday.

One such individual could be Coke’s Wednesday teammate, Kieran Lee, who the Advertiser understands has been the subject of interest from the Robins over the past few days, while another Owl in Gary Madine was strongly linked with a loan move to the County Ground yesterday.

Evidently, Patey’s comments did not go down well with Di Canio.

When asked at his press conference prior to this weekend’s clash to Walsall about the possibility of new players being drafted in, he said: “I take advantage of your question because I also want to clarify something that went out.

“It’s far from the truth when someone is talking about being careful bringing in players, having medical tests because of the Coke situation with Sheffield.

“The people speaking have to understand and know exactly how we work.

“Every time we have a specialist and a specific medical test with every single player - even if we loan one player for one day.

“The Coke situation was the last day of the transfer window.

“We didn’t have enough time when he was travelling down and if we had signed him before anyway we called the physio at Sheffield and asked if this guy had a problem in the past.

“Just because three days before he played against Fulham in the cup, he was fully fit.

“Anyway, even if we made a specific medical test, it is a problem that you can’t discover if someone doesn’t mention the problem.

“It is under the foot, not in a joint. It’s a chronic inflammation that you discover if someone tells you they had a problem in the past.

“Nobody mentioned this problem.

“Before speaking the people have to have knowledge of what we have done in the last few months and then maybe they can say something.

“There is no reason to mention that we have to be careful.This is my job, this is our job.

“The people at the top, in the board, don’t have to speak about this job.

“They have to put in money or not put in money if they don’t want to but not talk about fitness.

“They can ask ‘why this and why that?’ but not talk about being careful like there was a mistake made by Paolo Di Canio, Phil Spencer, the physio. No, no, no.

“We were perfect in every single situation. We did a fantastic job.

“We don’t have to be careful, we know how to be careful, we know how to work.

“Everybody has to sort out the financial problems if they care about this club and the squad.

“They can care about the club but not about the squad.

“In my opinion, a normal club should care about the club and then about the squad, which is the heart of the club and don’t mention about transfers.

“We know what we’re doing.“We have already done history with this club.

“Someone has to do his job and see if they are part of the history of this club in the future.”