HAVING also seen many of his star players prised away in the last 18 months, Chesterfield manager Dean Saunders can sympathise with Swindon Town’s plight this season.

Last season’s top goal scorer Eoin Doyle departed for Cardiff in February for an undisclosed fee before Sam Clucas followed him out of Spireites world to Hull City for £1.3m before highly-rated Tendayi Darikwa, who is now being linked with a move to the Premier League, left three days after to Burnley for £550,000.

Saunders has put that upheaval down as the reason behind his side’s mixed start to the League One season and understands the transition that Swindon have also experienced.

“Swindon are in the same position as us,” said Saunders.

“They were brilliant last year, people saw who was brilliant for them and they came in and bought their best players and it affects results.

“Mark Cooper’s just lost his job, he wasn’t saying anything different to last season, but he lost his four best players and we’ve lost £4m of players in the last 18 months.

“Losing your four best players can be like losing seven or eight of the others.”

Chesterfield head into Saturday’s game on the back of three defeats in the league, but still sit five places and four points above Town in the table.

Having conceded nine goals in those three outings, Saunders will be keen to sure things up at the back and knows his strike pairing of Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Lee Novak, who have scored 10 goals between them so far in the league, can cause Swindon problems of their own.

“We had a good month last month, we’ve had a bad couple of weeks so we need to get back up and get back on a good run,” added the Spireites boss.

“We’ve lost three games we shouldn’t have, we’ve not become hopeless overnight, it’s just basic mistakes we’re making, maybe because we’ve got a new defence,” added Saunders.

“We’re creating chances and playing some good football at times, but we’ve not got the continuity.

“We need to get that right, but at the moment we’re getting punished for every mistake we make.

“We’ll go out on Saturday, look to be tighter and go out to try and win against Swindon.”