SWINDON Town head coach Ben Garner admitted his side needs to find a way to win when they are not at their best more often following a disappointing 2-1 defeat to Salford City on Saturday.

Having chained three wins in a row together, Town were hoping to link four in succession for the first time this season – something the Robins looked on course to do when Harry McKirdy headed home a Joe Tomlinson corner in the 55th minute.

However, goals from Liam Shephard and Ryan Watson saw that opportunity slip by while Salford recorded their first ever come-from-behind victory since being promoted to the EFL in 2019.

In true coaches’ style, Garner stated there were many positives as well plenty to improve on.

He said: “We don’t want these things to happen, first and foremost, but we analyse the performance and take the positives out of it.

“We see where we need to improve, and also work out how we see games out when we’re not quite at our best.

“When we’re not free-flowing or as sharp as what we were on Tuesday night against Walsall, for example, let’s make sure we come out with the result.

“How we do that is something we can work on, it’s something we’ll improve.

“I certainly don’t think we deserved to lose that game, but we don’t want to be saying that. We don’t want to be saying: “we didn’t deserve it.”

“But can we improve our performance levels from today – if we do, then the result will take care of itself.”

Playing their third game in a week, Town appeared slightly flat as time went on and had no answer to Watson’s 86th minute tap-in.

Prior to that, Garner believed his team was the one who wanted to win the game most and spoke of his shock when the late set-piece found its way past Jojo Wollacott and into the back of the net.

He said: “Even at 1-1, I thought we were the team that was going to go on and win the game.

“Sometimes in a game, you sense danger or you feel under pressure because they’re getting on top – at no stage in that second half did I feel like that.

“I’m disappointed we haven’t gone on to win the game, but we have to look at why that was, we have to address it, and we have to make sure we improve it moving forwards.”