Swindon Town have announced the appointment of Luke Williams as the club's new head coach on a five-year deal.

The Robins have been without a manager since the departure of Martin Ling, who left the club on health grounds in December just 56 days after his appointment.

Williams has been with Swindon since 2013, working as a first-team coach and assistant manager, and chairman Lee Power has now handed him the reins on a full-time basis.

"I am really pleased that Luke is going to be our club's head coach on a full-time basis. He has signed a five-year, fixed-term contract which I fully expect him to see out and be at the club for many years to come. Luke is an integral part of our project at Swindon Town. He is a fantastic coach - the best I've come across in 25 years of football," Power said in a statement on Swindon's official website.

"He has had to do it the hard way and has certainly served his apprenticeship. He finished as a player very early on due to injury and has put his whole life into coaching and improving players. He's been an Under-14s coach, a youth team manager, an Under-21s manager and an assistant manager and is now ready to be a head coach. He buys fully into the club's model and is the ideal man to lead the club forward.

"The reason we have taken a bit of time over the appointment is that we both wanted to make sure that he was ready and comfortable to take on the other parts of the job that he hasn't had to do up to this point - mainly picking the side and dealing with the press. If either of these jobs had detracted from the quality of his coaching, we would have looked at going down a different route but he has taken to the role in his usual calm, controlled manner and been totally unfazed."

Swindon, who take on Millwall at the County Ground on Saturday, currently sit 13th in the League One table.