Liam Kinsella’s free transfer from Swindon Town to Cheltenham Town was not a decision made based on finances, according to Gavin Gunning.

The former Walsall midfielder left Swindon this week to jump up to League One, just six months after making the move to the County Ground after departing his boyhood club in the summer.

This move left many fans concerned of another window in which Swindon had lost many of their experienced players, with Lewis Ward and Remeao Hutton having already departed during January, particularly with Angus MacDonald, Ben Gladwin, and Louis Reed having all left in the previous January window.

However, Gunning said that the decision had not been made based on financial factors and was instead a human decision.

“Liam came and spoke to me,” he said, “His fiancé is pregnant and Cheltenham had come to him with an offer and it is far closer to Birmingham than Swindon is.

“I had a decision to make and I spoke to Clem [Morfuni], he didn’t want him to go but I thought it would be better if he did.

“Sometimes you have got to look after the person as well, I know the fans might not be happy but it was the right decision and I stand by it.

“It was a human decision. Do you want to keep him here with six months left on his deal? Or he can sign an 18-month deal with Cheltenham and he can be closer to his fiancé who is pregnant?

“It wasn’t for money or anything like that, if we were trying to do that then Liam Kinsella would not be the player we were trying to offload."

Gunning said that he did not feel that the deal would impact his squad to any major extent as Kinsella was unlikely to play any major part in his plans for the rest of the season.

He said: “With the personnel, we have got coming in he was likely to be a squad player, which would be unfair on him to keep him from Cheltenham.

“It is nothing bigger than that and nothing smaller, in my opinion, he would probably have been a squad player.

“I don’t know what the problem is with that [him moving on], I will be honest and say that he wouldn’t have played this weekend.

“I think that we will be reinvesting his wages and more, to be honest.”