Mark Kennedy said that Nnamdi Ofoborh is still fighting for his place in the Swindon Town team after he returned to the squad at Barrow.

After starting the first four games of Swindon’s season across all competitions, the former Rangers midfielder found himself on the bench for the trip to Crewe Alexandra and then out of the squad entirely for the games against Notts County and Exeter City.

Ahead of Swindon facing Barrow, Kennedy said that Ofoborh was free to go out on loan as he felt he could do with the additional game time that would be limited at Swindon after the arrivals of Gavin Kilkenny and Danny Butterworth.

 

 

He said: “Nnamdi is a valued member of the squad but if Nnamdi felt that the best course of action to get minutes was to go somewhere else then we would facilitate and support him in that.

“If Nnamdi says ‘I want to stay here and really fight for my place’ then we would have him in open arms because he is a very good player.

“If somebody is injured then he is straight in, he started multiple games for us already.

“But I think going forward, if I was to be stern in my thoughts then I would look at the options of where he is going to get the most football.”

However, Ofoborh was back in the Swindon squad as they visited Barrow in League Two in the absence of Joel Cotterill, who was on international duty with the Wales Under-21s.

Having said that the player was on the fringes two days before, Kennedy was asked about whether Ofoborh had chosen to stay and fight for his place following his surprise inclusion.

He said: “They all want to fight, every player wants to play, you are a professional footballer, it is the title of your job and if you don’t have that in you then you are doomed.

“Joel was obviously away and you have to understand what we have got available with lots of players load compromised today.

“Nnamdi was really unlucky today because I am somebody who thinks about the game before the game and obviously things change as you go along but I was fully expecting Nnamdi to play half an hour today.

“You have seen what happened in the game and when you are 1-0 down you have to make different decisions but he is a really good kid.”