WITH Swindon Town’s League One status secured, Luke Williams can finally collaborate with chairman Lee Power and plot the course for the future at the County Ground in earnest.

Saturday’s 1-0 home win over Chesterfield meant that Town put any outside chances of finishing in the bottom four to bed and head coach Williams can seriously turn his thoughts to how he will go about moulding his Swindon side during a first summer at the helm.

Since the conclusion of the 2014-2015 season, Town’s turnover of players has been copious, with the club making 12 permanent signings and bringing in no less than 10 men on loan, with goalkeeper Jake Kean joining on an emergency deal just 11 days ago.

Williams is expecting the County Ground arrival and departure lounges to be plenty busy ahead of next term but, with the blessing of his chairman, the Swindon head coach would love to operate with a tightly-knit group that are all pushing in the same direction.

“I think the lessons we’ve learned are that too much of one thing is no good and not enough is no good,” Williams told the media.

“We had, at one point, 31 players in training and we were abysmal, and there was no togetherness, there was no fight and passion, and there were too many players that felt they were nowhere near the squad and therefore demotivated.

“We went from that extreme to the other. I still would rather have had the scenario that we’ve had where we had a small group but everybody fighting for each other and desperate to get in the squad.

“I think, had we had not suffered so many injuries at the same time, we would now be looking at a play-off campaign.

“So I would rather have had this smaller group that we’ve been working with in recent weeks and months than have 31 players, many of which were not committed and demotivated, and really not giving us what we should expect from professional players.

“I think what’s key is keeping some members of the existing squad.

“This has been a steep learning curve for a lot of young players in that squad and I think we’ve identified a number of them that have really dealt with that better than you’d expect, and have come through with flying colours.

“I think we would be foolish to have invested (such an) amount of time in these players and then see them leave the club so early, so I’ll be trying to stake a claim for keeping a few of the players that have done so well in their first season.

“And of course, there will be some that haven’t made the grade and will be moving on.”