Swindon Town's David Flitcroft keen on friendlies with Portsmouth and the two Bristol clubs

Swindon boss David Flitcroft is trying to improve Swindon's pre-season schedule with friendlies against Portsmouth, as well as Bristol City and Bristol Rovers.

Given that Flitcroft was only named as the Swindon manager on June 5 and the former Barnsley and Bury chief has been put in sole charge of everything, Town have zero confirmed pre-season friendlies at this stage.

It was a very different story last season, as the Robins had a packed pre-season last summer, playing seven in total, beginning with a 6-0 win over Swindon Supermarine on July 9.

That was followed by a brief tour of Ireland where Swindon beat Shelbourne 1-0 and the University College of Dublin 5-1 before returning to England, which saw the form drop.

They lost the remaining four games, against Reading (1-2), Woking (1-0), Swansea (3-0) and Yeovil (2-1) which set the tone for the season, as Town were relegated from League One.

Speaking about the lack of pre-season games planned currently, Flitcroft said: "It's going to be difficult, that's the only obstacle that we're trying to move at the minute.

"I've spoken to Kenny Jackett to try and get a game with Portsmouth but they've actually gone in as a new management team and trying to lose a couple of games from their programme.

"I spoke to Lee Johnson and Darrell Clarke of Bristol City and Bristol Rovers respectively, trying to get games against them, even if it's behind-closed-doors, even if I've got to take them to the training ground, I've got to find a way of getting some games into this programme. 

"That's the only difficult bit that I can see at the minute because everyone's structure is in place and, like I said, some teams are actually trying to lose games going in.

"We'll get round that and work around that and we'll make sure we've got enough games to work towards."