TIMING is an essential part of sport, especially football.

If you keep hold of the ball for too long in a counter-attack, the chance is gone.Release the ball too early, and you’ll arrive at the same conclusion.

It’s not only timing in a game context that’s important, but when players return from injury, how the fixtures are laid out, or when your side finally hit form and have to wait two weeks for another game to come along.

After dismantling Chesterfield at the Proact Stadium last Saturday, Martin Ling’s Town record now reads three wins in four League One games, resulting in a climb up the table, with his team starting to resemble a cohesive side.

On the first day of his arrival, Ling said this squad of players should be nowhere near the bottom four, and of course, he was right.

After Saturday’s result my first thought wasn’t how far we had moved away from the bottom four, but how many points Swindon need to catch up with the top six.

Is that too ambitious or a realistic target? I think most fans would think it was stupidly ambitious and 75 per cent of me agrees with them.

But, as we know and have witnessed over the years, if you pick up some momentum anything can happen.

If over the next couple of months we can gather some pace on our winning run, make the right additions in January and clear out the dead wood, a top-six finish in a very weak League One isn’t an impossibility come May.

It was great news to see Louis Thompson extend his stay at the club until January 6. Having him in the squad over the busy Christmas schedule will be important and it will be interesting to see who follows in extending their deals.