MANAGER Richie Wellens says it will take him time to get Swindon Town to a level competitive with the leading lights in League Two despite potentially the most impressive victory of his tenure at the weekend.

Swindon made it three away wins from three in 2019 with a classy 3-2 success away at Milton Keynes Dons on Saturday thanks to Michael Doughty’s double and a superb strike from Keshi Anderson.

That result saw Town climb one place in the table to 12th and trim the gap between themselves and the play-off places to eight points with a third of the season to go.

Having only taken over at the Energy Check County Ground in November, Wellens admits he is still getting to grips with the various personalities within his squad.

Once he has a full grasp on that, it is only then that Wellens feels Town can start to compare themselves with the division’s front-runners.

“It takes a lot of time and hopefully the club will allow me to take time,” said Wellens.

“I am just concentrating on getting a certain way of playing across to the lads and I am still working out different characters.

“For example, I think I have got Michael Doughty’s character – I think I understand him and I think I know what makes him tick.

“It has taken me probably six or seven weeks to work out Michael. Some of the others, I still haven’t quite worked them out.

“You need time, you need defeats and you need wins. You need good wins and you need wins where you hang on and scrape over the line.

“I need all those different scenarios to make it easier to work out what characters I am working with.

“You look at the top teams – Ryan Lowe has had Bury for a good period now. He suffered relegation with them and got his own players in and knows what they are all about. Now they are flying.

“At Lincoln, the Cowley brothers have had them for a long time and been through the Conference and had a lot of success.

“They know what characters they are dealing with and I am still working my way towards finding out what characters my lads are like.”

Wellens’ immediate task is try to make it back-to-back wins during the visit of Forest Green Rovers to the County Ground on Tuesday.

Player-coach Matt Taylor is a doubt for that match after limping off in the first half against MK Dons.

Wellens said: “Matt felt his calf. He is someone who is experienced and knows the signs. He told us he felt it before anything went.

“We will have to look at him, but I would say he is a doubt for Tuesday. He will be a loss.

“We played a practice match against Bristol City last week and he looked back to his best and he started well again on Saturday.”