THE one Swindon Town player to receive glowing praise from manager Mark Cooper following the Robins’ miserable home defeat to Oldham Athletic on Saturday was defender Troy Archibald-Henville.

After a long period out of the game through injury, Archibald-Henville came off the bench at half-time to make his first Town appearance since November 2012 and impressed with a number of galloping runs out of defence and clinical distribution from the back.

Though he was subsequently sent off for picking up a second bookable offence by referee Tim Robinson, Archibald-Henville did enough to catch the eye of his manager. Cooper reiterated how important it is for Swindon that they keep the centre-back fit for the remainder of the season.

“We planned to give Troy half a game because he’s got to get match fit sooner or later and we’re trying to keep Darren as fresh as we can for Wednesday,” he said.

“We haven’t really talked him up because we don’t want to put too much pressure on him. We know he’s a good football players and we needed to start with 45 minutes and gradually build him back up.

“We don’t want to put him back to square one again with his knee, which is what happened at Carlisle. He trained too much and probably didn’t look after his knee the best he should. We’re making sure we make every effort now to ensure every time he plays he’s looked after right.”