Swindon Town captain Nathan Thompson will "never use injury as an excuse"

Swindon Town captain Nathan Thompson has the sort of attitude where he never wants to get substituted, even when injured, according to the club's head coach, Luke Williams.

Skipper Thompson is both the longest-serving member of the Swindon squad and, being 26, he is also bizarrely the joint-oldest player, along with Jon Obika and Raphael Rossi-Branco.

He was replaced in the 89th minute of Swindon's 1-0 win over Millwall on Saturday, for Brad Barry, a matter of seconds are being yellow carded, but Williams said this was due to the defender having a heel problem rather than being in danger of being sent off.

"Nathan's had a problem with his heel and it ends up with a very sharp pain and at that point I felt he was in too much discomfort and it only needed one mistake and the game was so poised," Williams revealed at full-time.

"I didn't want Nathan to be in a situation where he's trying to do everything he can and physically he can't quite do what he wants to do and I don't think it was fair to put him in that situation."

Thompson, who started his career as a right-back, has been converted into a centre back in recent years, excelling in the sweeper role, but on Saturday he was put back to his previous position before being switched out to the left-hand side.

Williams also said in his post-match press briefing that Thompson had probably been playing with a bit of pain all game but the nature of his determination to the club meant that the captain was reluctant to be brought off.

"I should think Nathan was in a certain amount of discomfort before we kicked off but he'll try not to tell you and he'll never use it as an excuse," Williams continued.

"It was only when one hip started dipping considerably lower than the other when he was running that I could see he was struggling, I had to sort of tease it out of him, such is Nathan but in the end he was struggling far too much that is evident that it was a problem."

Swindon went into the match with a near-fully-fit squad, with only Anton Rodgers and long-term absentee Jamie Sendles-White being unavailable for selection, but Ben Gladwin had to be pulled out of the starting 11 ten minutes before kick-off.

Gladwin was replaced by Conor Thomas, who scored the winning goal in deep, deep stoppage time but QPR loanee Gladwin does not have a serious issue, Williams has said.

He also praised the midfielder for having the selflessness to not play on regardless for the good of the team.

"He's had some ongoing problems with his knee that he's been playing with so I don't think it's anything more serious - just a bad reaction in the warm-up (that) made it feel very, very uncomfortable and he was honest enough to say he felt he wouldn't give justice to the team, which is a big thing for any player to do that.

"He did that for the team and sacrificed his own start to make sure that we were as strong as we could be."

It is not yet clear whether Thompson, Gladwin, or both will be ruled out of Saturday's trip to Fleetwood yet.