Swindon Town have exceeded their budget for the playing squad this season and that is slowing up progress in the transfer market, according to Ian Holloway.
20 days into the January transfer window and, so far, Tom Nichols is the only arrival on loan from Mansfield Town and Rosaire Longelo has departed for Salford City on a free transfer with a sell-on fee included.
Clem Morfuni had increased the budget towards the end of the last window to enable Town to add four players in the final week, but Holloway had previously hinted with the sale of Jeff King to York City that room would need to be created for more arrivals this month.
Explaining the decision to allow Longelo to depart, Holloway said that he wanted to free up some budget to bring in players who may feature more regularly than the former Accrington Stanley man had.
He said: “We have got a sell-on, so if he does go on to do more things then we will get a fee from that.
“We are over our budget, I have brought Tom in and I have to get that off and for what Longelo was on, he wasn’t producing the games that we needed him to be.
“He should be playing every week and he hasn’t been through his injury or whatever reason it has been.
“My phone rang about him and he is gone, in this day and age if he can get an extra year then that is good for him and we get a sell-on and I get some money to reallocate on a different player.
“I put Botan [Ameen] out wide in his area, so you could argue that is the reason I have done it but I also didn’t want to stand in his way.
“We have got a maximum two-year cycle and he was on the maximum and if Salford can give him longer and I can clear up a space then I am going to do that rather than lose some of the others I might see as slightly more important.”
Holloway added that moving Longelo on would allow him to do different things in the transfer window that he would otherwise be unable to do.
He said: “He is a wonderful kid and a good signing for them but that allows me to do some other things that I might have done already and I might now be able to do.
“I will be judged on the long-term of what I can do for the club and the team and this is the situation that I am in.
“I might want to chop and change to see if I can change it around.
“I call it having a wardrobe, you might have loads of jumpers but does that one go best with the shoes that you have got on if you are going somewhere smart or if you are going somewhere casual?
“We will wait and see but watch this space.”
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