Swindon Town "played without intelligence" against Shrewsbury on Saturday

Swindon Town head coach believes the club played with "anxiety", "pressure" and "went into their shell" when a man up against Shrewsbury.

The Robins were held to a 1-1 draw against Shrewsbury Town on Saturday in a match that saw a second half jam-packed with drama.

Shrewsbury's Aristote Nsiala was sent off for fouling Luke Norris in the penalty box, a spot-kick that Johnny Goddard tucked away, but despite being a man to the good, Swindon could not build on their lead.

In the 70th minute, quarter of an hour after Goddard's goal, James Brophy was sent off for a second yellow card and ten minutes later Shrewsbury were level courtesy of a Mat Sadler header and they earned a draw.

At full-time Williams outlined why he thought Swindon could not kill the game off when it was 11 vs 10.

"We looked more nervous playing against one less player than we did at 0-0 so it's just anxiety there and pressure," he said.

"It's affecting people's decision making and that shows, there's too many unforced errors. (The red card to Brophy) certainly (falls into that category) and I'm quite sure that after the referee has sent a player off for the opposition he's more inclined to send one of ours off.

"But we need to not give him the opportunity to make a (decision) on a second yellow so a bad decision (by Brophy) in the heat of the moment cost us.

"I've just watched the team go into their shell, look nervy, hesitate and make the wrong pass the wrong side of the body, when to play safe, when to go forward. I thought (the red card) would give the team a lift but it seemed to have the reverse effect on us.

"It's hard for me to know (why). I thought the one thing we had over our opponents was the intelligence and today we just seemed to play without that and the bottom line is pressure.

"My instinct, my experience would tell me that we've been struggling for points and there's a mentality of 'don't make a mistake'.

"If you try to play like that you don't do anything - you're so scared to make a mistake you don't do anything at all and it's a backwards way of feeling but when you're feeling emotions and feeling pressure you can slip into this."

Later on, Williams would provide an injury update on the Swindon squad. Captain Nathan Thompson did not even make the substitute bench against Shrewsbury while Yaser Kasim did and came on in the second half.

Similarly, Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill failed to make the 18, as did youngster Tom Smith.

"We were hoping that Nathan would be able to make it but obviously it wasn't the case," Williams began.

"Yaser was very ill (on Friday, the day before the match).

"It was almost definitely something that he'd eaten, which is a relief it's not a virus that can spread through the group but of course, when you suffer this sort of sickness, I'm sure I don't need to go into detail, but it can leave you quite dehydrated and without nutrients so he wasn't able to play anymore part of the game than he did.

"Unfortunately (Ormonde-Ottewill) has not been able to be on the training pitch as of yet but we still live in hope that he can have a good week.

"There is a slight problem (with Tom Smith), it's nothing major and (I) expect to see him back very soon."