JAN Melichar believes Swindon must work harder physically and mentally if they are to end their run of late defeats.

Wildcats have lost five of their 12 EPL games so far this season in overtime or on penalty shots, and that is a statistic that has cost them greatly.

Had Ryan Aldridge’s side picked up victories instead of losses in those matches, they would be level on points with league leaders Manchester.

And towering defenceman Melichar said: “It could have been an extra five points and that would have put us at the top of the league.

“It’s mainly about focus, in some of these games we were up and we couldn’t kill the game, but it could also be the physical side.

“We’ve just got to work a little bit harder on both of those things.

“We had a good talk with Ryan before training on Tuesday and all of us went really hard to build ourselves up physically.

“Everyone was working really hard and we will do the same on Thursday (last night).”

For Melichar, the 2-0 away victory against Basingstoke at the beginning of the month gives Swindon a good platform to build on ahead of this weekend’s double-header with the Bison, even though he acknowledges it will be a tough ask to win again.

“It will be difficult for sure, Basingstoke are very experienced and dangerous offensively,” he said.

“The good thing is we’ve proved to ourselves that we can beat them if we stick to our system defensively and get the little things right.

“We know we can beat them and that gives us confidence going in.

“When we played them before we stuck to a system and didn’t give them many chances, and if we did, Skinnsy (Dean Skinns) saved it.”