RICHIE Wellens believes Swindon have a great chance of getting promoted this season if both Eoin Doyle and Jerry Yates stay at the club, but says it would not mean the end if both were recalled to their parent teams.

Both strikers are on season-long loan deals, however, with the pair performing so well in the opening months of the campaign, talk has been rife of a potential recall to Bradford City and Rotherham United respectively.

It is understood that all but one of Town’s five year-long loans have a recall period of just a few days while an unnamed player could be brought back at any time during the January transfer window.

Wellens was keen to stress to supporters that he and the club have contingency plans in place should ‘the worst happen’, but the manager says nothing has changed and he expects to have Doyle and Yates as the hunt for promotion continues in earnest.

Wellens said: “We have a plan for if we keep Eoin (Doyle) and we have a plan if we don’t.

“We have a plan for if we keep Jerry (Yates) and we have a plan for if we don’t.

“It’s not ideal because if were able to keep these players together and we were 100 per cent sure they would stay, would we get promoted? I’d say we’d have a hell of a chance.

“What we don’t want to do in January is rip our team up and start again.

“We don’t want to be changing five players around, but we need to make sure we’re planning in case the worst happens.”

Swindon will have both Doyle and Yates on the pitch for this afternoon’s clash against Mansfield Town – a club now managed by John Dempster.

The former Stags player replaced ex-Swindon manager David Flitcroft at the Field Mill in the summer following Mansfield’s play-off semi-final defeat to Newport County.

Wellens called the decision to sack Flitcroft ‘unbelievable’ and was left unsurprised by their slow start to the campaign.

He said: “Mansfield have a team that, for a number of years, have been right up there.

“They spent the whole of last season inside the top three under Dave Flitcroft.

“They were unfortunate in the play-offs because a lot of decisions went against them, but then they took a decision to sack Dave Flitcroft, which from my point of view was unbelievable.

“Again, they’ve put their money where their mouth is and they’ve backed their manager, but with the talent they’ve got in the squad, I would imagine they feel they should be doing a lot better.”