Richie Wellens left angered by EFL's Salford rearrangement

RICHIE WELLENS has been left angered at the EFL’s decision to rearrange Swindon Town’s fixture against Salford City for Tuesday 24th March, meaning the Robins will now play seven fixtures throughout the month. Total Sport Swindon’s Ryan Walker spoke to the Swindon Town manager at his midweek press conference.

After the Class of 92’ owned Salford City secured their place in the leasing.com cup final, Swindon Town’s League Two fixture against their Northern counterparts has been rearranged for the end of March, making Swindon’s end of season run-in an even more congested fixture list. 

Speaking about the rearranged fixture, Wellens said:

“We will have now seven games in March and we will then play on 28th March and then we don’t play until 10th April,” said Wellens.

“How does that happen?

“We realised we couldn’t play it after the leasing.com trophy so we wanted it before,” he added.

“We wanted to play on the Tuesday or Wednesday before that then giving us an extra days rest from the Saturday. 

“Yeh the EFL want to help Salford because they’ve got to a cup final and we know we can’t have it on the last Tuesday of the season in case there are any other postponements, but to have seven games in March, which is seven in 25 days, and then not to play for two weeks doesn’t make sense,” said the STFC manager. 

“We’re not happy about it because we shouldn’t have that many games and then a two week break with four games left of the season.

“You want to go into the last few games with momentum and it can be dangerous having that time off.

“We’re not happy with it but we’ve had a lot of things thrown at us this season and we’ll just get on with it,” he said. 

Swindon’s next fixture sees the league leaders travel to strugglers Mansfield Town with Richie Wellens’ side seeking to keep their lead at the top of the league. 

But despite Mansfield spending heavily in the summer, Wellens admits he has been left unimpressed by what he has seen from The Stags, although insisted Swindon must remain focused on their own game as the season enters its final stages.

“I think they missed out on promotion by the finest of margins twice and then they make a decision to change their manager,” said Wellens.

“It’s another example of a club who have come close and then make rash decisions in getting rid of a manager who has done exceptionally well there. 

“They went down the avenue of changing manager and when you do that there are no guarantees,” he added.

“I think they most definitely should be higher than they are this season because they have a lot of talent in the squad.

"Defensively they have got very strong players, and in Rose and Maynard they have two players at this level who can score goals,” he said.

“We can’t control whether we can get the three points or not but what we can control is our performance, our work rate, our intensity levels and that’s what we will be focusing on.

“When you start drifting away from what you can control, that’s when things become dangerous. 

“Irrespective of whether we’ve got 2000 fans there or 800, our motivation will remain the same,” Wellens said.