SWINDON might have let a two-goal lead slip against Manchester on Saturday, but Nicky Watt says he and his teammates had plenty of reasons to be pleased with their night’s work.

Aaron Nell and Jonas Hoog gave Wildcats a 2-0 advantage with barely six minutes played at the Link Centre, only for the visitors’ new signing Michal Psurny to hit back with a top-shelf drive at 15:38.

After Shane Moore and Andy McKinney came to blows, Joachim Flaten bagged his first English Premier League goal to level (27:17) and then his second put the Phoenix in front for the first time at 51:52.

Less than four minutes later Hoog collected another, but a goalless overtime and misses from Nell and Hoog in the shootout ensured victory for Manchester.

And while that resulted in one point for the home side instead of two, forward Watt said it was a well-earned result against last season’s play-off finalists.

“We were playing against a team that is going to be competing for trophies at the end of the year, so to get a point is a good start,” he said.

“In the three pre-season games we let in five goals in each game which we got down to three (against Manchester) with good team defence, which is encouraging.

“They are definitely going to be competing at the top of the league, they have got one of the bigger budgets and Tony Hand (player-coach), who is like a fifth import. Any team with him on it is going to be a good team.

“You always know Manchester are going to come at you hard, they have got a good core of Brits on that second line.

“It was a good game, it kind of slowed down in the second and we ran into a bit of penalty trouble, but apart from that it was positive.”

Swindon head coach Ryan Aldridge said: “I’m disappointed inasmuch as we were 2-0 up but did not come away with all the points.

“But I thought that we always had a chance to win the game and I thought we were the better team, especially when we were five on five.”