SWINDON Town’s inability to deal with Carlisle United’s shots on target ‘scared’ new boss Richie Wellens, who conceded after Saturday’s 4-0 thrashing that he has plenty of work to catch up on if his side are to launch any genuine play-off bid.

The loss dropped Swindon further down the League Two table – with Wellens’ side now 18th with just 21 points from 18 fixtures.

It means Town are now two points closer to the nearest relegation position than they are to the play-off frame, a far cry to the club’s stance in the league table following a 3-0 win at Yeovil Town eight weeks ago.

While Wellens identified positives in the game’s opening 40 minutes, the new Town manager suggested that a re-shuffle with the starting XI might be what is needed to kick Swindon’s season into life.

Wellens said: “There were positives, but it scares me that we’ve done okay in the game and we’ve conceded four goals – and they only had five shots on target.

“I might look back on this team in four weeks’ time and think to myself ‘why did I pick that team?’.

“I thought I’d give an opportunity to a team that got a good result against York (in the FA Cup last weekend) but we didn’t find our best system, so I’ve got to juggle what we’ve got around on the training pitch.

“I could make several changes next week (and the players couldn’t argue about it).

“We’ve got injuries, though – Michael Doughty, Kaiyne Woolery, Toumani Diagouraga.

“We’ve got injuries to personnel, which can impact the squad. But finding the shape that gets the best out of the players we’ve got is key.

“We haven’t got one out and out wing-back at the club. Ellis (Iandolo) and Jermaine (McGlashan) are both wingers, therefore you get the positives going forward.

“I thought Jermaine was excellent for the first 30 or 40 minutes. But there are deficiencies in defence, so we’ve got a lot to work on this week to try and get things right.”

Cries of ‘We want Power out’ rang around the County Ground following Saturday’s dire second-half display as the full-time whistle was, understandably, met by boos from the majority of supporters.

With chairman Lee Power himself admitting that he never predicted Town to be struggling in the bottom half of League Two when taking sole control of the club five years ago, manager Wellens vowed to work ‘as hard as he possibly can’ to get the best out of the players available to him.

He added: “It kills me (that I couldn’t get a win for the fans).

“I thought the fans were good – they didn’t get on the lads’ back too much when they came off.

“I’ll work as hard as I can to get the best out of these players, but I need to get on the training ground and work. We don’t score many goals, so how can we do that?

“We need to make sure we’re making runs into the box and getting onto the end of crosses.

“So many good balls went in, but there was never anybody there. Defensively, we can’t have a good period and then play badly and concede and concede – it can’t happen.”