SWINDON Town head coach Ben Garner is keeping an open mind when searching for new signings and says he will not be panicked into buying players before the start of the season.

Since he and director of football Ben Chorley arrived a little over a week ago, Town have made just two new signings in the shape of Ben Gladwin and Lewis Ward.

The pair of summer acquisitions brings the total number of under-contract professionals up to 12, although Brett Pitman and Akin Odimayo’s respective futures remain unclear.

With the League Two season set to begin on August 7, Town are currently struggling to field a competitive XI and will need to add to their squad before arriving in Lincolnshire if they are to have a chance of claiming victory.

Despite the countdown being well and truly on, Garner says he and Chorley are not setting a target number in terms of signings made before Saturday.

He said: “I don’t want to put a number on the amount of players we want, and I don’t want to think like that.

“We’re just concentrating on the quality we want, the type of character that we want. The first week, we couldn’t have done any more than we have, we’ve worked every hour of every day, and we’ve made really good progress training and recruitment-wise.

“We’ll continue to do that, we’ll keep grafting and grafting to bring in the players we think can help us.”

The Town coach was greeted with a plethora of trialists upon his arrival from an array of clubs throughout English football, ranging from Championship youngsters to experienced non-league players.

Garner says anyone stands a chance of securing a deal at the County Ground, providing they are of the right character and quality.

He said: “We’ve got no restrictions on the level we’re looking at players from. We’re open to all options – whether they’re coming out of non-league, whether they’re coming on loan from a higher level, whether they’re players we know historically from other clubs.

“It’s just a case of being open and trying to find players who are the right players for us at this moment in time and players who will be right for the future.

“They’ll be no restrictions on their background or where they come from etc, if we think they’re good enough and they fit what we want to do, then we’ll be interested in them.”