Jody Morris said Swindon need to avoid repeating the mistakes made in January

Jody Morris has said that the mistakes in January need to not be repeated this summer if Swindon are to be in a better place next season. Total Sport’s Joe Acklam spoke to the head coach ahead of Saturday’s game against Barrow AFC.

Defeat on Easter Monday made it eight without victory for Morris, but he revealed that he is in discussions with people higher up at the club about what needs to happen for next season.

Morris talked about how he was judging renewing players’ contracts for next season and that he had to make sure replacements would be found before people were allowed to depart.

He said: “I think that I have been here long enough to look at some [out of contract players] and think we definitely need to have them around or you think they are going to be good for us in the future.

“Then there are some that you might not be as strong on, I think you need to give people a fair crack to show what they are made of as you can go through spells of just not performing.

“It was not ideal coming in and loads of things changing, but I have an idea of the ones I definitely want around here.

“But it becomes a whole new conversation for next year as there might be some that you don’t think are suited, but you don’t want to make decisions on players when you don’t know whether you will be able to get players in.

“For me that was a problem coming out the other side of the [January] transfer window where you could argue that certain people weren’t replaced.

“I would be careful about ruling players out who are here in the hope they are going to be replaced as we don’t want history to repeat itself again.”

Morris also said that despite the run of form there was no pressure from above him and all of his conversations remained focused on next season.

He said: “I haven’t had any form of pressure and I don’t feel any form of pressure from upstairs, I put enough pressure on myself.

“All of the conversations I have had [with people at the club] have been about what do we look like we need.

“I have given my thoughts on what I think is absolutely needed for us to improve the balance of the squad and give the players here a better of chance of succeeding with a better all-round balanced team.

“I have spoken to Clem [Morfuni] a few times and obviously I speak to Sandro [Di Michele].

“The people at the club know my thoughts and what I believe can help us get to where we need to get to and that involves things around the club and players.

“I think those sorts of things can be addressed in the summer to give everyone at the club a chance of starting next year in a better place.”