SWINDON Town Ladies manager Steve Robertson was left feeling deflated as his side were beaten 3-0 at home to C & K Basildon Ladies. The result means Town remain in a precarious situation as they are one place off bottom in the Women’s Premier League Southern Division.

While Robertson couldn’t fault the performance, he was frustrated that his side have been without a fixture since their 2-2 draw with West Ham Ladies in early March.

“It’s hard to be disappointed because we haven’t played a game in about six weeks or so,” said Robertson.

“We would like to be playing every week but it is hard to keep the motivation for the players, especially those who travel, when we don’t have a game.

“It felt like a pre-season game yesterday. They should have won the game to be fair. We started okay but after 20 minutes, you could see the cobwebs.

“People haven’t played for a while, but we got a second wind and then got tired again on about 75 minutes.

“The players were just tired and when we aren’t playing regularly, it is always going to be difficult.

“They bought into the system well and tried to play football on a difficult pitch; Shrivenham is never an easy place to play and they worked their socks off.

“The attitude was spot on, they were just rusty.”

After not playing for well over a month, Swindon now have a quick turnaround as they host Coventry United Ladies on Wednesday evening.

Despite the drastic change, Robertson expects his players to be up for the challenge later in the week.

“To be fair to the girls, they are getting on with it and doing the best that they can,” added Robertson.

“We’ll have to stick with what we have got, which is fine. But it falls to the girls because they need to be motivated.

“I can only motivate them so much. They have to have the right mental attitude and it is really tough.

“They’re still in good spirits and they still want to do well we just have two one-off games now for the rest of the season and we just need to get over the line now.

“It’s a big learning curve for them because they have to perform in the next two games.”