Swindon Town Head of Football Jamie Russell said that the EFL sanctions did not see the club lose out on any targets during the January transfer window.

Town managed to bring in nine players during January, with seven players heading the other way in a busy month in the transfer market.

Due to 39 total days of late payments to HMRC and a third-party club since June, Swindon were hit with a £2,000 fine and a transfer window fee restriction for the January window, meaning that Town were unable to pay transfer or loan fees to bring players in.

But Russell said that those restrictions had not prevented Swindon from bringing any players in that they were interested in.

He said: “We don’t go into a room and say, ‘we can’t pay for a player’, you find out where the player is, you speak to the agent, and you speak to the club and find out what is possible.

“With some players, it is possible to take over their contract and then with other players it is not going to be possible to do that.

“I know everyone is caught up with the embargo, but when is the last time Swindon Town paid £200,000 for a player? It is not every transfer window.

“Although it looks worse than what it is, we already knew the targets we wanted to get and we just went ahead and got on with the work.

“[Did it impact any players that you would have otherwise tried to sign?] No.”

Russell said that the window had also not been disrupted by the departure of Michael Flynn part-way through as the club do not sign players for one specific person.

He said: “Mike and I had a really good relationship and we worked really well together, it was unfortunate where he came in when we were trying to clear and we ran out of time with that.

“We always knew that this window was the one where we could make more movement, so it was unfortunate for Michael that he went but a lot of the work had been put together anyway.

“From a club point of view, they were club signings and some of the signings in the summer window were club signings.

“They weren’t Michael Flynn signings, these aren’t Gavin Gunning signings or Jamie Russell signings, they are club signings and what we believe is best for the club.”