SWINDON Town manager Richie Wellens believe it is now the time of the season where results must be achieved by hook or by crook.

Previously, Wellens had always championed his team churning out high-quality performances ahead of simply winning games.

But with the race for the League Two title appearing to go down to the wire and a plethora of games still to play before the end of the season, the 39-year-old says now is the time for his team to start winning ugly if necessary.

He said: “For the majority of the season I’ve concentrated on the performances and the results will tend to look after themselves if the performances are right.

“But it’s come to the stage of the season where we now just need to concentrate on winning the game.

“With games now coming Saturday-Tuesday for the next three weeks, we need to somehow win games by any means necessary, as long as we get the points.”

The opportunity to collect points will start on Saturday when Town travel to Wellens’ former side Oldham Athletic.

The Town boss says this game means no more to him than any other, and he is simply tasking his side with responding positively to defeat against Forest Green Rovers last weekend.

“There are no side issues for me in this one, that’s not relevant,” said Wellens.

“It’s about the fact that we’ve lost a game and we want to bounce back in the right way.

“Every time we’ve lost a game, we’ve bounced back really strongly, and that’s the most important thing.

“Sometimes I thought our performance was ok against Forest Green, it wasn’t a great result, but now it’s about bouncing back and trying to get the best possible result against Oldham to take us into the heavy schedule with some positive momentum.”

Town will be given the best possible chance to respond in the best way at the weekend on a high-quality Boundary Park playing surface.

Wellens reported the pitch is in excellent nick and should suit Town’s quickfire passing style.

“I’ve watched a couple of games up there and the pitch is actually ok, it’s recovered well,” said Wellens.

“And compared to the pitches we’ve played on recently, it will be up there as one of the better ones.

“Oldham were getting the ball down and playing quite nicely against Newport, so we’ll be trying to do the same thing.”