SWINDON Town defender Zeki Fryers insists his teammates all have their eyes set on promotion this season after a sparkling start to the League Two campaign.

Richie Wellens’ men occupy top spot in the English Football League’s fourth tier courtesy of 10 wins from their opening 18 games and are on a four-match winning run ahead of this afternoon’s clash at home to Mansfield Town.

The visiting Stags are in decent form themselves though – having not tasted defeat in any of their previous half-a-dozen fixtures away from Nottinghamshire.

However, Mansfield are down in 14th while Swindon sit some 13 places above them.

Fryers, who has been an integral part of Town’s recent upturn in fortunes, says another win this afternoon will be important to take into the enforced two-week break ahead of a hectic Christmas schedule.

He said: “We’ve got a great set of lads, and we’ve all got the same vision in terms of getting around the top and getting promoted.

“We all work hard and we all understand each other, so if we can continue this form and keep this team spirit up, hopefully we’ll get to where we want to be.

“It’s disappointing to have this two week break coming up because you want to keep the momentum going.

“Having a weekend without a game can sometimes knock momentum, but if we get back to training the week after and keep our focus, hopefully we can continue the run.

“On the flipside, you get that extra rest so guys come back fully fit and raring to go.”

Fryers has made 14 appearances for Swindon so far this term – eight of which have come at centre-back as he fills in for long-term injury victim, Dion Conroy.

After initially being thrown in as a stop-gap, Fryers revealed he had a conversation with manager Richie Wellens in which he expressed his desire to continue in the centre of defence as long as it meant he kept his starting spot.

Fryers said: “I am enjoying it at centre-back.

“I spoke to Richie and said I’d play at either left-back or centre-back as long as it meant I was playing.

“I’m happy but I’m still getting used to playing at centre-back.

“I haven’t played there for a little while, so to be back there in recent weeks has been a learning curve again, but I’m enjoying it.

“Me and Mathieu understand each other, and we speak a lot throughout the game.

“He’s more experienced than me in that position and he’s played a lot more games, so he’s able to pass that information on to me and it means I’m able to learn as I go.”