Swindon Town are not planning to rush into a decision over replacing Jamie Russell following his departure as Head of Football this week.

With just over a month until a potentially pivotal January transfer window, Russell, who was in charge of recruitment for the first team, has left the club, creating some uncertainty about the month and the structure of the footballing side of the club.

Ian Holloway said that he would expect to have a significant role in the business that Swindon do during this window and moving forward when asked whether he knew whether Russell would have a successor.

Speaking to The Adver, Clem Morfuni said that he believes the club have the required footballing experience right now to push ahead without finding a replacement for Russell immediately.

He said: “At the moment, no [we don’t plan to replace him] because I have spoken to Ian Holloway and with the experience that he has got, managing nearly 1000 games, and we have also got Les Caffrey.

“So, Ian is working out what players he needs and what players he doesn’t want, and he is trying to work that out.

“I have left that position vacant to see what the best outcome is. We have got January coming up and Ian has got a lot of contacts in the football world, and I am relying on him to pick the players that he wants.”

Anthony Hall added that despite losing a crucial figure who was in charge of the footballing aspects of the operation, the necessary experience to tide the club over in the short term was definitely in place.

Hall said: “I think when you look at Ian Holloway coming in, Marcus Bignot is here and Steve Mildenhall as well, they have proven records in the game.

“Unfortunately, Jamie has moved on, and we will look, as we have said, long-term at what we will do but the transfer window is 34 days away and we have to knuckle down for that.

“We are not going to rush into a decision and I think that we have enough knowledge to get us out of this.”

Russell was also pivotal in the overall direction of the club, planning an ethos from the first team all the way down to the youngest academy age group and empowering those in other positions to set the philosophy. His tenure saw great success for the academy sides in all areas.

However, Swindon also believes that they have people to fulfil these functions already in-house and would not be immediately seeking out someone to assist with those aspects of Russell’s role.

Hall said: “The pathway from the academy to the first team will remain. We have got Gavin Gunning who looks after that and Mark Moss has come in from Gillingham to head up the academy and the changes that we have made in there.

“In terms of where we are now, Ian Holloway and the team here right now will go through the January transfer window and then myself, Ian, Clem, and the rest of the football side will sit down and figure out what we will do in the long-term.”

The Adver is also aware that former Swindon chairman and current Adver columnist Andrew Fitton reached out to Morfuni in the wake of Russell’s departure to offer his experience to help run the club and fix what has caused the difficult seasons on the pitch.

Morfuni said that he did plan to sit down with Fitton and discuss what he could contribute, although he did not like the way the news had filtered into the public.

He said: “I had a message from Andrew Fitton, I am in Thailand right now and he sent me a WhatsApp on Tuesday at 3.57 am and said that he could help me. In the last part of the message he said ‘I am travelling on business from this weekend for two weeks and I am ready to start work when I get back.’

“I left it alone and waited for him to come back and then I saw something on social media saying he reached out to help.

“I would rather have spoken to him and worked out some sort of a role, not go through social media. I wasn’t too impressed with that when he could have just come to me.

“I don’t know what he is offering to do. That is no disrespect, I have been at Swindon for ten years and ran the club for four years. The club needs football people and people to get us out of this situation that we are in.

“I believe that Ian Holloway is well-equipped to do that. He is very experienced, he has got plenty of passion, and plenty of energy. I said I would sit down with him but he is on holiday for two weeks.”