Swindon Town Head of Football Jamie Russell said that he has been working hard this summer to compile a comprehensive shortlist of transfer targets.

Town unveiled Mark Kennedy as the club’s head coach last week, but Russell said that he had been working hard on the recruitment side long before that announcement came.

The former West Bromwich Albion Head of Academy Recruitment said that he had compiled an extensive list of targets for Swindon in preparation for the head coach’s arrival.

He said: “[Not having a head coach] makes it harder because you are looking further and wider and doing more work to make sure that when we have the sit-down you are ready.

“When you have the conversation about player x, we might not be able to get player x because he is going to League One, but we already have players y and z who have very similar traits.

“It is really important that we have got an a, b, c, and d for each position and each type of player.

“Like Mark eluded to, we are not just going into the young market, we are fully aware of the experience that the first team needs and we know exactly where it needs to be strengthened.”

Russell also added that a large amount of work had been done on developing a database of young players for potential loan moves.

He said: “It is so hard to judge under-21s football compared to League Two, it is so easy to have your lens focused on what an under-21s game looks like but it can be completely unrealistic.

“We have this database now of current players starting from under-17s through to 21, on the experience they have had.

“Building up a real holistic programme of that person so when they come in the door you know what you are getting.

“Anyone can look really good with loads of time on the ball, but when they are pressed, what do they look like? How do they look at set pieces?

“We have put together our own database through some outstanding work that Baillie [Coupland, Football Operations Manager] has done and that allows us to track players, so over a season you are building up a good library on a player.

“That means that if someone becomes available at the last second, we know if we want to take a dice roll on them, not as a main player but as someone who could be a game-changer for us.”