Swindon Town would be "foolish" not to keep relationship with Chelsea, according to Luke Williams

Swindon Town head coach believes the club would be foolish to relinquish their good relationship with Premier League giants Chelsea.

Already-relegated Swindon ended their dismal season with a dead rubber 3-0 defeat at Charlton Athletic at the Valley on Sunday.

Given that the result meant nothing to Town, it gave Williams an opportunity to field out-of-contract players that are after a new deal as well as those few that will definitely be a Swindon player come July 1, but there were a few eyebrow-raising selections.

Charlie Colkett, on loan from Chelsea, was selected ahead of Johnny Goddard (who is contracted to the County Ground until 2019), while Islam Feruz, another loanee from Chelsea (who has not played since January) started ahead of youth academy graduate Scott Twine.

A third Chelsea loan player, Fankaty Dabo, also started at right-back ahead of Brad Barry, who may leave Swindon this summer, but does have an option in his contract that allows the Robins to keep him.

At the end of the match, Williams said: "I think we'd be foolish to not try to use the loan market and, often, if a player has had a good experience at a club, they are more likely to go back and pick up from where they've left off.

"We've seen boys leave this club and come back here on loan - Louis Thompson, Ben Gladwin and Nicky Ajose and so on and have very, very good spells at the club.

"I think it would be foolish to not try to work in partnership with some of the clubs in this country that are enormous and have got huge resources."

Chelsea are by no means the first club to have a positive connection with Swindon. Celtic, Tottenham, Liverpool and Southampton are the most notable teams in recent years that have loaned players to the County Ground, with much of them being popular among the club's fanbase.

There is a constant feeling, however, that Swindon become over-reliant on temporary loans with not enough players actually signing official contracts with the club.

Going into next season, Town only have nine contracted players, while seven of the current squad are set to return to their parent clubs.