ADAPTABILITY will be key for Swindon Town players in the near future, according to manager Richie Wellens, ahead of two matches against the club’s promotion rivals in a matter of days.

Town travel to Plymouth Argyle on New Year’s Day before welcoming on-loan striker Eoin Doyle’s parent club Bradford City to the County Ground on January 4, meaning Wellens will be without his top scorer available for selection.

Several other first-team members are also likely to be out of action following a handful of injuries picked up in recent weeks.

Players in the medical room at present include; Dion Conroy, Mathieu Baudry, Tom Broadbent, Ellis Iandolo, Zeki Fryers and Keshi Anderson.

With a threadbare playing squad up for selection, particularly in defence, Wellens is backing his remaining charges to stand up and be counted in order to minimise any potential disruption while injured players recover.

Regarding a plan of action against Plymouth, Wellens said: “We’ve got a group of players whose attitude is very, very good and they want to listen.

“We will have to adapt, but I’m sure whatever we throw at them, they’ll do their very best to take it on board.

“Last time we played Plymouth, defensively we were down to the bare bones and we still got a point.

“We led until about the 80th minute against a good team.”

Curiously, injury talk dominated the pre-match discussions in the build-up to the last fixture between the two sides as Town continued to endure a sticky run of results while several first-team players were out of action.

While results have been far better in the run up to their latest clash aaginst the Pilgrims, Wellens says it was no coincidence that his ability to select a settled side had resulted in table-topping form two months later.

“That point against Plymouth last time was a good one for us at the time,” said Wellens.

“A lot of the things went against us in the previous two or three weeks, and when you’re in a bad run, you’re looking for a little thing to get you going again.

“Then we got a few players back and things picked up again.

“That’s the difference. When we went on a poor run, we had a huge amount of injuries to the same position.

“You don’t mind three or four injuries in different positions because you can deal with it, but when you get all these injuries to the same position, it gets tough.”