Swindon Town chairman Lee Power "shocked and disappointed" by David Flitcroft departure

Swindon Town chairman Lee Power has expressed his disappointment at former manager David Flitcroft jumping ship to Mansfield.

Flitcroft left Swindon Town for Mansfield after just seven months in charge of the Robins and Town are now without an official manager with just 11 games of the regular League Two season to go.

Player Matt Taylor has been put in interim charge while Swindon search for Flitcroft's replacement, and Power confirmed to the BBC that the ex-Portsmouth man will be in the dugout for Saturday's game against local rivals Cheltenham Town.

He also admitted that he was disappointed to see Flitcroft, the third manager Power has hired since being chairman, leave the club.

"I was very surprised. His agent had left messages [and] the Mansfield chairman rung us asking 'can I speak to your manager?'. They had already spoken to Flitcroft and for them to ring me, it's something that's more or less been agreed.

"I went back to Dave and said 'I've had Mansfield on, do you want to speak to them?' He said yeah, I'd like to go and I think it's a good opportunity'.

"I was shocked and disappointed because I'd like to think as a club we've done everything we could to assist him and David did a decent enough job, we're not far off where we need to be, been unfortunate with a few injuries and so on, but it's something we didn't need.

"I would have liked him to take it through to the end but he decided he wanted to go to Mansfield."

Swindon are seventh in League Two at the moment, while Mansfield are fifth, and both clubs had their game snowed off at the weekend.

"Compensation is something that's already agreed in a manager's contract anyway," Power continued. "It's there and if a club pays that compensation, you don't have a lot of choice anyway, so there's no point arguing and David went and we wish him well after this season.

"It left us with a big hole and a bit of a shock. Matty's going to take this weekend's game versus Cheltenham and over the course of this week, I'll be speaking to other candidates."