TOWN boss Mark Cooper knows his side still have a long way to go before they line up against Bradford City on August 8.

Swindon have won just one of their pre-season fixtures as they experiment with new formations and trialists, that success coming at Petersfield last weekend.

Ahead of another fixture against Premier League opposition, this time Tony Pulis’ West Bromwich Albion, Cooper is not reading anything into those results. Instead he is focusing on fitness and assessing the on-contract players.

With the new group looking likely to take a slightly different shape to last season, it now appears likely the Town boss and his assistant Luke Williams will be working a new formation. Against Aston Villa they tested out a 4-3-3, but they might also look at 3-4-3.

If that is the case then Cooper knows there is a fair amount of preparation to be done on the training ground in order to get everyone used to their slightly different roles.

“It is a decent amount of work (to change the defence from a three to a four),” said the County Ground chief.

“These boys coming in will probably be used to a back four. I think it’s important this year that we possibly have two systems of play.

“You want to be competitive (in pre-season), but we’ve got work to do on the little nuts and bolts of how we want to play, if we want to go to a similar system to (Tuesday) we need to iron that out and get it right.

“I still think we’ve got a way to go. I liked the look of us (against Aston Villa). We looked compact and pretty solid, with a middle block of the team and played some really good football as well.”

With Swindon’s model of bringing in young players from bigger clubs and giving them a platform in a footballing team Cooper accepts his new team will take time to bed in.

However, he is encouraged by how the midfield is taking shape.

“Possibly we are (going to hear a lot of ‘they’re young, they’re learning’), they are, it’s what we do,” Cooper added.

“They’re young, they’re going to make mistakes, but they’re going to entertain as well.

“I think we’ve got some real good quality in (central midfield) now and some real good competition for places.”