Gavin Gunning has branded Swindon Town's season "unacceptable" after a 2-0 defeat to Grimsby Town ensured this would be their worst-ever season.

Swindon controlled much of the game with their possession but failed to find the creative spark to force Jake Eastwood into much action.

Then as the game was drawing to a close, Liam Smith slotted home a cool finish before Donovan Wilson rocketed in a wonderful second goal for the hosts.

Defeat meant that Town would not be able to catch the 58 points from the 1983/84 season which was the club's previous low watermark.

Gunning said that the entire season had not been good enough as they fell to yet another defeat on the road.

He said: "I think at this stage of the season it is a tough one, but it is not just this stage of the season.

"Our performances in the last two games have been really good and we have dominated the ball, but today we were a bit blunt in front of goal and we took the wrong decision a lot of the time.

"We were just blunt and then in the second half we were just poor and rolled over.

"Maybe we were lethargic travelling up to Grimsby, but they are just excuses, the fans have travelled five and a half hours to come here and we have to do better.

"It has been a bad season, we had a good first eight games and then after that it has not been good enough.

"I know the fans will be disgruntled [next week] because this season has been unacceptable for a club of this stature."

Gunning was particularly frustrated with how his team failed to build on a promising first-half display with a dismal second half with the team never really causing any problems for the home side to deal with.

He said: "It is tough, maybe the journey takes it out of your legs, it is easy to make excuses like that when you have had two away games in a week, but we need to be honest with ourselves.

"The second half was not the level that we need to be at.

"[On the first goal] We will keep that [his opinion] for in the changing room, we will dissect it and talk about it on Monday."

One positive was from the performances of academy duo Joel McGregor and Harley Hunt, who both started after impressing in mid-week.

Gunning was hugely impressed by the maturity and quality shown by both of the homegrown prospects.

He said: "They were brilliant, the composure Harley has had was fantastic.

"They are learning all of the time, they are doing brilliant stuff, they are making mistakes which they are learning from and that is just fantastic for them.

"Harley has got unbelievable talent and an unbelievable future in the game.

"Those two have done fantastically well, so we will have to see [whether other academy players will be given a chance next week]."