SWINDON Town head coach Ben Garner said his side will continue to “look at the big picture” after the Robins lost 3-1 to Bradford City at the County Ground on Saturday.

Swindon were well beaten in reality, despite having 73 per cent possession, as the Bantams secured a first win in Wiltshire since 2005 courtesy of goals from Caolan Lavery, Levi Sutton, and Theo Robinson.

But while Town’s unhappy run at the County Ground continued with a third home defeat, Garner’s men remain in a League Two play-off spot mere months after they were tipped to become the first former Premier League club to exit the football league through the trap door.

The Swindon head coach said while the defeat against Bradford was nowhere near acceptable, he would not be raking his players over the coals after such an encouraging start to the season overall.

Garner said: “I certainly won’t be critical of the players [because of one result], they’ve been fantastic all season.

“We’re disappointed, it was a disappointed dressing room – and naturally so – but we look at the big picture.

“We’ve had a really pleasing start to the season given where we’ve come from, and I think sometimes people can get carried away.

“We were favourites to get relegated and go out of the football league, and now when we don’t win games it’s a disaster and we should be winning the league.

“We know where we are, we know what we need to improve, and we know what we need to keep doing.”

As Town floundered against Bradford on Saturday, two of the team’s younger players endured particularly poor afternoons.

Romoney Crichlow and Tyreece Simpson came up short in terms of the standard most fans would expect of them, but Garner stressed he is not concerned given the relative inexperience of both.

The Town boss is adamant the quality of the pair will shine through more often than not and is backing not only Crichlow and Simpson, but the whole squad to bounce back at the weekend.

Garner said: “We know we have to be patient at times with a number of young players in the team who are enjoying their first spell of football league experience.

“We know we have to be patient at times, but we also want to compete and do the best we can, and we’ll keep working hard every day to do that. We’ll certainly be looking for a much-improved performance and a bounce back against Oldham on Saturday.”