What Swindon Town need to do this summer: Part One

Swindon Town have a big summer ahead of them under new manager Mike Flynn if he is to turn the club into promotion challengers next season. Total Sport’s Joe Acklam looks at what work needs to be during the close season.

Across three articles we are going to look at what Swindon need to do to the squad over the summer in order to be able to challenge next season, starting with dealing with the current squad before looking at potential additions.

The first step of the Flynn era began as Swindon released their retained list, there were no real surprises in this list, but it did show what Flynn will start with from pre-season as there will be 20 players contracted for next season were Tom Brewitt to sign the contract which he has been offered.

To get a sense of what squad size Flynn will be looking for at Swindon, it is sensible to look at what he has worked with the past at Walsall and Newport County.

To do this I looked at the number of players in his previous squads who played more than 900 minutes in a league season (the equivalent of nine full matches) to see how many players he tends to properly use.

Using this framework, the former-Walsall boss has never worked with a core squad of more than 16 players in any of his five full seasons (16 players three times and 14 players twice), for reference Swindon had 21 players meet this criterion this season, so Flynn likes to rely upon a smaller squad of core players.

Therefore, even discounting the prospects in the Town squad, the current group at the County Ground has more players than Flynn is likely to want to work with, so some more players are going to have to move out before anyone comes in.

This squad includes players like Conor Brann and Anton Dworzak who are unlikely to heavily feature over the course of the next 12 months, but even with their exclusion it does not leave the new manager a huge amount of room to manoeuvre to make this squad more to his liking.

Before any defensive additions, Harrison Minturn likely begins the season as a fourth-choice centre-back in Flynn’s preferred back three, and with signings likely here it could be best practice to try and find him a National League club where he could play more regularly to better support his development.

Tomi Adeloye would have been the ones bound for the exit door had Jody Morris and Sandro Di Michele still been in charge, and it is still likely that he would be the main candidate to be moved on if Flynn decides he wants a striker of his own to add into the mix with Charlie Austin, Jacob Wakeling, and Rushian Hepburn-Murphy.

With six central midfielders under contract and clear work needed to add greater steel and size to the position, it is likely that this is an area where there would be movement, Dworzak and Ricky Aguiar are another two players who will likely benefit the most by leaving on loan and Ronan Darcy could also leave on a permanent basis after struggling to show he could be an active contributor to a side going for promotion last season.

Were Flynn to stick with his preferred 352 system from his previous jobs then wing-back could be another area with too many bodies as Town have five players vying for two spots, given that Tyrese Shade was largely deployed as a wing-back during his time under Flynn at Walsall.

Ellis Iandolo and Reece Devine have both impressed as a left wing-back when fit, but both struggled greatly with injuries last season and finding a more reliable option could be a priority, likely meaning at least one of the two would have to be moved on.

There is also the distinct possibility that Remeao Hutton could be on his way up the footballing food chain after a blistering debut season at the County Ground, in which only Raphael Guerreiro was able to match him in assists as a defender in the EFL and Europe’s top five leagues.

Given Hutton’s ability going forward, particularly from crosses, he looks to be a perfect fit as a wing-back in Flynn’s system and so Town should look to keep him, if possible, but if a strong offer does come in then Swindon appear to have an ideal replacement already in house in Marcel Lavinier so don’t have to fear that prospect as they would almost anywhere else in the squad.

So, if we are to say that Dworzak, Brann, Minturn, and Aguiar spend the season either on loan or on the fringes and Swindon move on from Adeloye, Darcy, and one of the wing-backs, then that would see the core group shrink from 20 to 13 players, which is a much more palatable starting position.

The squad would then be constituted of no goalkeepers, seven defenders, three midfielders, and three forwards ahead of looking towards additions in the second part.