LUKE Williams has frankly admitted that he and his management team ask a lot of their charges but the Swindon Town head coach has no plans to soften his demands.

After losing 3-1 at the hands of Northampton Town in midweek – their fourth defeat in five matches in League One – Town go looking to get back to winning ways when they travel to Shrewsbury Town on Saturday.

The progressive ‘Swindon way’ remains entrenched at the County Ground but Williams concedes that attempting to keep possession of the ball in all areas of the pitch, even when pressurised by opposition players, requires steely concentration and heaps of intensity.

However, the Town chief believes that his players are fully capable of executing the game plan they’re instructed to carry out and refuted suggestions that his team are more interested in the ‘nicer’ parts of the game.

“I think nice stuff is the wrong (term) because playing like that is not nice. It’s stressful,” Williams told the local media.

“You have to think a lot, you have to be sharp, you have to move a lot. It’s tough playing football in that way. It’s not nice.

“I think I would try to say that you have to be as intense and switched on when you don’t have the ball as you are when you have it.

“I don’t think it’s that they’re not interested. It’s that it’s less natural to them.

“It’s something that we’ve done well at times – at Gillingham away (on August 16) and at the weekend (against Oldham Athletic) – but not consistently enough.”

Town were only able to stamp their authority on Tuesday’s clash with in-form Northampton for a short period but Williams is keeping faith with his team’s overall approach.

When asked if he’d consider a change, the Swindon boss said: “The style of play? Absolutely not.

“If we play (Tuesday’s game) a lot more defensive, (with) a lot of players closer to our own goal and don’t try to manoeuvre the ball, we get beat 3-0, for sure.

“I think the style of play is the least of our problems. We need to be better in key areas.”