IT’S possible that Swindon Town manager Richie Wellens will offer on loan midfielder Canice Carroll a permanent contract following next Saturday’s League Two visit of Notts County.

The Town boss has praised the 20-year-old’s desire to win and determination on the pitch amid Town’s slump in form, which has seen them drop into the bottom half of the League Two table following five winless games.

Wellens hopes that Carroll will be back in contention of playing against Cheltenham at the Jonny Rocks Stadium after he picked up an injury in the concluding minutes of Town’s trip to Newport earlier this month – which resulted in him missing games against Oldham, Cambridge and Crewe.

Discussing the possibility of Carroll returning to Town’s squad in 2019-20, Wellens said he wouldn’t rule it out.

He added: “Canice (Carroll) has been a big loss for us. The best thing I can say about Canice is that it hurts him when we lose, he is dying to win.

“Sometimes he frustrates me because he beats himself up. But at 20, his will to win is up there with the best of the group – and we’ve lacked that desire over the last few games.

“If they (loan players) are at a stage where they are improving rapidly and can have eight weeks with them in pre-season and use them next year, Canice would fit into that bracket definitely.”

Meanwhile Wellens’ opinions on Monday’s disappointing loss to Crewe have not changed after watching the video back.

Admitting it can sometimes be hard to judge a game from ground level, Wellens concluded his players did not press hard enough in the opening minutes – adding that some of them were already clicked into holiday mode.

He said: “From the very first whistle we didn’t press the ball well enough.

“We allowed Crewe to play out from the back too often – we got picked off. For a lot of our game this year, one of our strong points has been our ability to press well.

“But some players are in holiday mode, which I won’t accept. My opinion of the game hasn’t changed.

“Sometimes when you watch the video back, you see things differently because you’re not at ground level.

“You can’t start a game like we did.”