SWINDON Town chief Luke Williams admits that he was surprised at how quickly loanee Michael Doughty has slotted into his team’s engine room.

Brought in to ease the burden of Louis Thompson and Ben Gladwin returning to their parent clubs earlier this month – Gladwin was loaned out to Championship Bristol City after being recalled by Queens Park Rangers – Doughty arrived at the County Ground on a one-month loan deal on January 15.

After missing Town’s 4-3 win over Crewe Alexandra a day later through illness, the 23-year-old was handed his first start against Sheffield United last weekend and Williams is chuffed to see the QPR man stoking the fires of the battle for places amongst the Swindon squad.

“He’s been excellent to be honest and I was quite taken aback with how quickly he picked things up,” Williams told BBC Wiltshire.

“I watched the (Sheffield United) game back a couple of times and the positions he takes up and when he releases himself to go and press; he very quickly picked things up and that’s promising.

“It’s even more competition, you know. These boys are professionals and they understand that.

“They’re fiercely competitive and they all want to play in the team but also, they know that part and parcel of being a footballer is that you don’t always play every week.

“But we’ve got a very healthy group of players. Every day, they compete with each other and they’re always ready to go in to be in the starting line-up.”

Williams also thought that his charges’ display against Sheffield United was borne of the work they had put in during high-scoring wins over Southend United and Crewe Alexandra the two weeks previous, and that they should take heart from dominating possession, creating the most chances, and grabbing a deserved point courtesy of a Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill equaliser 11 minutes from time.

The Town manager said: “I feel like we built that performance off the back of the two before; not perfect by any means but in the two games prior to Sheffield United, you could see the intent of the team and the way that they were able to control the football.

“And we took that into Sheffield against a very good side and I think that does stand us in good stead - that should give the players confidence.”