Ian Holloway said that Swindon Town showed what they can do when they get their confidence back despite exiting the FA Cup at Accrington Stanley.

Swindon were seconds away from making it into the third round even with ten men but eventually were knocked out on penalties at The Wham Stadium.

Holloway said that he had been incredibly pleased with the team’s display even after losing, believing they showed themselves to have the potential to be a good team if they can get their confidence back.

He said: “I think that is the bare minimum I expect from any of my teams [energy and aggression] and I think that we had that for the 120 minutes today with whoever came on.

“Sometimes you need to go through adversity and I think that that is the level that I want us to play at but it still didn’t get us the result, so that is life.

“If we were flooding with confidence then I think that we would have won that in normal time and you could argue that we should have done because we let a disappointing goal in at the end.

“If I could buy us a win right now then I would do it because I think that the lads deserve that and they look like they needed it.

“Whereas I don’t need it, I know that we are getting better, I know what we are doing, and we have got a long way to go.”

Holloway added that he believed that the character that the team had shown during the match proved to him that they have what is required.

He said: “We have got to turn this around but with the character I saw today, I am uplifted, I am not down.

“The fans who came all that way, I think that they were uplifted as well because they were singing and doing all sorts of stuff.

“You have got to help the lads at home because sometimes we look like shadows of who we can be.

“That is the level that they have set today with that performance, we caused them all sorts of problems with only ten men.

“The boys are getting better, in my opinion, they are getting stronger and they need to.

“We are going to work on a lot of things about how the group has to be solid mentally and I thought you could see that.”