Ian Holloway said that Swindon Town are now in a “race to the finish” with the other struggling sides towards the bottom of League Two.

Following last season’s lowest finish in the four-tier structure, Swindon have struggled again at the start of this campaign as they have won just twice in 17 league games and sit level on points with the bottom club in League Two.

The slow start led to the dismissal of Mark Kennedy following defeat to Salford City and despite the tough beginning to the campaign, Holloway said that the brief he had been given by Clem Morfuni remained ambitious.

Speaking in October, he said: “It is a wonderful competition [The FA Cup] and we need a cup run and Clem has already told me that he wants promotion and a cup run – I said ‘Alright, I’ll do all of that in seven months, that is no problem. No pressure.’

“Whatever was happening before, I want to be judged by the end of my time here and if I can extend that then I would be delighted but I have to earn that.

“I am determined in this role to deliver to him [Morfuni] what he wants and I am sure that he wants that success.”

However, following a home defeat against Morecambe, Holloway said that the team had to look at things like a race to end between themselves, The Shrimps, and Carlisle United in which they needed to finish first.

He said: “I am bitterly disappointed because it is a tug of war and we regained it and then we went and did the worst thing we were all fearful of today.

“We knew that if it went the way that it did then they [Morecambe] are level with us. But all that this has done is make it harder.

“But now they [Morecambe] are level on points with us and the other team [Carlisle] are level on points with us as well.

“It is a race to the end, isn’t it? I can tell you that the feeling in there [the dressing room] is horrendous.

“What we have got to do is make sure that there is a damned sight more belief about us that we can do something, more so than we have got at the minute.

“They [Morecambe] had nothing to lose, they threw everything at us, the kitchen sink and everything, and we didn’t deal with it.”