SWINDON Town coach Tommy Wright admitted the management team at the County Ground do not know their best back line yet, despite the club having played over a fifth of their league fixtures.

Town take on Bristol Rovers this afternoon having conceded 24 goals in 11 games so far this season – the highest number in League One – while the number of conceded goals rises to 36 in 16 if cup games are taken into account.

And with all but two of Swindon’s defensive-minded players having featured at least once – only Archie Matthews and Dion Conroy are yet to make a competitive appearance – it is perhaps easy to see why Town have been so vulnerable at the back.

Wright revealed the Town management team may try something different once again this afternoon in a bid to clamp down on the defensive errors that have blighted the team’s start to the season.

When asked if the management team know their best defensive set up, Wright said: “To be honest, no because we’re conceding that many bad goals and it’s different individuals who are making the mistakes.

“We might try something different against Bristol Rovers because if things aren’t working, you’ve got to do something about it, and it’s not working at the moment.

“If the relationships aren’t working, you can’t keep forcing it – if you’ve got a puncture in your tyre, you can’t keep driving, you’ve got to fix it.”

If Wright was a betting man

With those defensive issues in mind, Wright suggested this afternoon’s game between Town and Bristol Rovers is extremely unlikely to end 0-0 – with Paul Tisdale’s side struggling too at the back.

He said: “If I were a betting man, I don’t think I’d put any money on 0-0! Hopefully, there will be goals and we’ll score more goals than them.

“We always aim to keep clean sheets, but since we’ve walked into the building, our attitude has always been that we want to be an attacking team, we want to entertain, and we want to score goals.

“I thought we were good at that last year – we’ve been quite good at that this year as well in an attacking sense, but we’re conceding too many poor goals.”

Wright not sure if five subs rule is good idea

As well as a chance to begin an upturn in form for both, this afternoon's west-country derby will be the pair’s first chance to use up to five substitutes in a competitive league match after the EFL changed the rule following conversations with clubs.

But Wright isn’t sure whether the alteration was such a good idea.

He said: “I’m not too sure if having five substitutes is a good thing to be honest. I’m a bit on the fence.

“Will it kill the movement and flow of the game? Will we, as managers and coaches, use it to stop the flow of the game and that type of thing?

“In theory, it’s a good thing because of the injury crisis that’s going on in football, but I’m still on the fence about the whole idea.”