SWINDON Town manager Richie Wellens say he is surprised to see his team at the top end of League Two and playing so well this early into the 2019-20 season.

A 1-0 success over Mansfield Town on Saturday was Swindon’s fifth consecutive league win – a result that ensured the club would remain in the automatic promotion places for at least another fortnight.

Wellens’ men have only lost five games since the new campaign kicked off – four of which came in a month-long period between September 17 and October 19 where the team was without key players such as Dion Conroy and Keshi Anderson.

Asked whether the club’s impressive start to their third crack at promotion back to League One had taken Wellens by surprise, the manager said: “Even if we had Lloyd Isgrove, Dion Conroy and Keshi Anderson fit, I’m a little bit surprised everything has slotted into place so quickly.

“But again, it can bite you on the bum if you start getting carried away.

“The season is 18 or 19 games old, and how many teams have been top of the league at one point? Six, seven or eight maybe? That’s the nature of the league.

“Newport were top of the league and lost three on the bounce. We were top of the league and had a horrendous October.

“So each club is going to have circumstances which go against them.”

The circumstances that Wellens was referring to mainly involved being unable to select important players in his starting line-up.

Jordan Lyden and Mathieu Baudry missed defeats through injury while Eoin Doyle was not allowed to feature against his parent club as Bradford City won 2-1.

The Town boss accepted his team was always likely to suffer a downturn in fortunes at some point during the season, but said a similar fate will likely befall the other promotion hopefuls between now and the end of April.

Wellens said: “We had a terrible October because we had injuries which meant we couldn’t compete against those teams.

“We had a little bit of luck go against us, but other teams are going to have that throughout the season too.

“So I’m not surprised that we are where we are because I know we have the quality, but I’m surprised that everything has knitted together so well and we’ve managed to get to the top of the league so early on in the season.

“But there is a long way to go, so being top means nothing just yet.”