Ian Holloway said that Swindon Town’s lack of communication has been a major contributor to their form on the pitch this season.

A draw on the road at Accrington Stanley at the weekend means that Swindon have just 13 points from their opening 16 League Two matches and are one spot outside of the relegation zone.

After the game, Holloway said that his team must become more vocal as that was contributing to their problems in defending and at set pieces.

He said: “It is about a sense of pride because I do believe that we have got a lot of talent and it is about them doing it for real and telling each other that they expect better.

“I am not relieved because I think we deserved that [a point] on the second-half display, it could have been better but we didn’t deserve that as we should have competed better with what they were doing.

“My staff have been excellent in showing them how to do it but they have got to go out and do it.

“I don’t like the way that they did it because they weren’t helping each other like I would expect a team to do, in the second half they did.

“The crazy bit about this is that this is all about a lack of communication and professional footballers are nowhere near as good at communicating as they should be and as they were when I was playing.

“Senior players told me how to go and win your header when you are not doing it well enough but they don’t do it, they are all nice.

“I can only explain to you what should happen and in my group it will; we need to improve on certain other aspects as well but this is massive.

“It is all simple, but it is like a golf club, you take it out, polish it, and put it back in and then we are all getting shinier.”

Holloway has previously said he plans on doing a silent week of training to help the players realise the importance of communication and he said that improving that will also help them to improve in other areas.

He said: “If I had a bottle of momentum then I would give it to everybody but they will learn.

“Will Wright, [Harrison] Minturn, Ryan Delaney they will learn, if you are playing back there then you have to win those headers. End of. At this level or we will get hammered in behind.

“I am not saying that I am going to replace them but I am saying ‘Come on, do your job’ and I might have to say it in a nasty way sometimes.

“The people next to you need to encourage you as it is happening, you could see it in their team but you couldn’t in mine.

“I need to get them to learn how to encourage each other, which is massively missing without someone like Ollie [Clarke] or Grant Hall.”