SWINDON Town defender Akin Odimayo recognises he must continue to improve or face a spell out of the team if his individual mistakes cost the team points too frequently.

The 21-year-old was at fault for Doncaster Rovers’ second goal during Tuesday night’s 2-1 defeat as the centre-back turned right-back was caught out of position midway through the second half.

Although full-back is not Odimayo’s first option, the defender realised becoming versatile may extend his spell in the team, even though the learning curve becomes steeper for a player who is experiencing professional football for the first time.

Even if he does make a mistake though, Odimayo says everyone at Swindon is helping him to improve every day and will efficiently communicate how to reduce errors – a contrast to his time at Reading’s academy.

He said: “The adaptation between centre-back and right-back is difficult because you’re working from a different angle and a different position.

“There are little things that I’m learning on the job, but I’ve got to improve quickly. I need to see the danger from a different perspective when I’m at right-back, and that’s something that I’m working on.

“When you make a mistake, you’re told straight because you’ve got to learn from it. We’re in a professional environment, so I don’t expect anyone to be too nice or too harsh.

“We’re all working to improve, so it’s constructive criticism. You’ve just got to take everything on board, learn from it, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Another new experience for Odimayo has been playing in front of a large crowd for the first time.

The 21-year-old started in front of the Don Rogers stand against Fleetwood, and he was surprised to learn how difficult communicating with his teammates was when over 1000 Town fans were belting out their support from 20 yards away, as opposed to the serenity of most grounds so far this season.

He said: “Playing in front of fans was so different – I realised that you can’t really hear your teammates very well on the pitch, I’ve never really experienced that before.

“That took me a bit of time to get used to, it means you’ve got to be really switched on and use eye contact when you’re talking to someone.

“Going from fans to no fans and back again is noticeable. You go from being able to hear everything to barely being able to hear anything at the weekend.

“It’s a different experience for me, but I’ll get used to it quickly.”