Gavin Gunning has announced an end to him having to manage his Swindon Town squad’s minutes during matches ahead of facing Mansfield Town.

Town brought in nine new players during the January transfer window and Gunning has made no secret of how he has had to bring them up to full fitness on the fly.

Since playing Newport County in the first game of February, the interim head coach has made at least two changes to every starting 11 and 31 substitutions across seven games.

However, Gunning has said that his squad have reached a point where he will no longer have to make those pre-planned substitutions.

He said: “Everyone is in full blast, all the minutes and thankfully everyone is available for Mansfield because it will be a tough game.

“I won’t be making substitutions on the dot of 61 minutes, like four subs, that won’t happen unless we are chasing a game.

“If we are chasing a game and I think we need to change it then, of course, we will do that, but it won’t be so specific of me looking at the clock and thinking ‘Right, you three need to come on now, come on, let’s get some minutes.’

“That has probably killed us in a couple of games, but we had to do it.”

Gunning added that he was pleased to be able to get away from that and start being able to use his wealth of attacking options to impact games.

He said: “I think the competition is more at the attacking end, there are not as many defenders or midfielders.

“A lot of the midfielders play the same kind of role, there is not one who plays a deeper role, they are all similar types.

“In defence, we are obviously missing the two lads [Harrison Minturn and Pharrell Johnson] so there is not as much competition, but at the top end, there is lots of competition, which is good.

“That is where you want to make your changes, you don’t want to take three defenders off and bring three on.

“When you bring attackers on it is to bring fresh legs on and it kills the defence.

“Fans are probably looking at it and thinking someone is doing well, but he is probably fatiguing, so then we get the speedy ones on or the intelligent ones.

“It is about getting the dynamic of who plays well with who.”