BOSS Richie Wellens has warned Swindon Town have "no chance" of winning promotion this season without further investment in the squad.

The frustrated Town manager has urged club owner Lee Power to act now in the transfer market – rather than wait until the Sky Bet League One season has kicked off.

Despite bringing in a number of new faces during the summer, Wellens says Town lack the strength in depth to challenge at the top end of the English game's third tier.

He was speaking after watching his team suffer their second home defeat in four days – a 3-2 loss to West Brom U21s in the EFL Trophy.

Wellens said: “What I don’t want, is in three or four weeks’ time when the window’s shut is ‘you can have him, you can have him and you can have him’, well there’s four or five games gone (by then).

“We need help. I’ve said it for the last three weeks and to be honest I’m getting tired of it.

“This is probably the only team that I’ve not kept the majority of a promotion squad, we’ve allowed players to go and then we’re slow in getting replacements.

“As you can sense, I’m not happy.”

Wellens cited the ongoing contract wrangle with Kaiyne Woolery, who helped Town win promotion last year but has yet to agree terms for 2020/21.

He said: “I’ve said who the people I want in. Kaiyne Woolery is sat at home doing nothing, I want to sign him but, there you go.

“You read into that whatever you want.”

Town begin their league campaign with a home game against Rochdale on Saturday.

And in response to being asked whether a second successive promotion was on the cards for this season, Wellens was unequivocal.

He said: “I know what it takes, I’ve been promoted from League One as a player, I know exactly what it takes to be promoted from League One.

“Our squad wouldn’t win promotion from League One, no chance. With three or four bodies in, we might have an opportunity to.

“League One’s a strong league. Sunderland finished outside the play-offs. Sunderland. With something like a £14m budget.

“Ipswich finished outside, Peterborough have just sold a striker (Ivan Toney) for £8m or whatever it was to Brentford.”

“So you need a squad to compete. There will be exceptions like Wycombe, and they did fantastically well, but I think the players know.

“They need a little pick-me-up with a couple of bodies coming in and strength in depth.”