Newport County (A) Match Thread

[McMark]

Never one to single out individuals as it’s a team game at the end of the day. Yes they capitalised on individual errors but our goal as good as it was was also started from an individual error. Not a great collective performance, but still feel with inclusions of Brough, Burns, Platt, Kay and Quigley in the side we will be a different animal. Still undecided on who is going to pull the strings in midfield as we looked to lack cohesion there as a unit. But certainly not going to lose much sleep over it. We all have bad days at work and as a collective it was a bad day!
Think I would hate to play in graveyard grounds with no fans as it’s them that lift and motivate not just a pay check.
We can only have six on our bench as the 7th has to be from your academy as I understand it!

[Suffolk Blue]

Like some others I'm not sure why there should be such an outpouring of criticism based on events thus far. I'm pretty certain that if we had put out a team last season at say Hartlepool or Halifax that didn't include Quigley, Brough, Kay, Platt or Rooney there wouldn't be very many of us that would have expected to walk away with the points. Indeed I think we'd be monumentally pi**ed off with the situation.

Those players provided the spine of the team last season, a spine on which our style of play was built. It shouldn't surprise us that without them we look a little clueless going forward. Consequently I too believe that with Quigley and Platt playing in their proper places, the chances are that we may well have 4 points on the board by now.

What does concern me more is that its clear that these weakness relate to players missing from last seasons squad and that without them we are as poor now as we were then. I'm happy to agree that our defence has been beefed up a bit to the extent that I think its much less likely that we will ship a large quantity of goals, but as far as I can see that is all we've managed to do in our acquisitions so far.

That may be sufficient ultimately for us to survive in the division this season but I agree with those thus far who say that we do not look like a team with much of a purpose. I'm not calling out David Dunn just yet as its much too early. I've always thought that the views on this forum have been generally speaking overly optimistic about the quality of our squad against others in the division. This is a step up for us. Whilst there may be a few carthorses in L2 this season they will all be bottom feeders.

I've been trying to assess objectively what he appears to be bringing to the club that is an improvement on what was there before. He does seem to have a idea of shape and structure and seems to place greater emphasis on defensive discipline. Beyond that I cant really see any coherent strategy further up the park and our game management in both fixtures has not looked very good. His communication skills are clearly not that great either. Its difficult to work out what the team are collectively trying to do.

[goalie6789]

Must be strange for the lads playing behind closed doors. Normally have a good noisy contingent at away games and that could make a difference if and when we get back crowds.

[Jonty]

I'm not sure why there should be such an outpouring of criticism based on events thus far. ...

It shouldn't surprise us that without them we look a little clueless going forward.

What does concern me more is that its clear that these weakness relate to players missing from last seasons squad and that without them we are as poor now as we were then.

as far as I can see that is all we've managed to do in our acquisitions so far.

I agree with those thus far who say that we do not look like a team with much of a purpose.

I cant really see any coherent strategy further up the park and our game management in both fixtures has not looked very good.

His communication skills are clearly not that great either.

Its difficult to work out what the team are collectively trying to do.

[barrowaberdeen]

Most positive thing learnt s there isn't a cigarette paper between average League 2 sides and top half National League

Hellishly one dimensional but let's keep the heid

[saltcellar]

Never one to single out individuals as it’s a team game at the end of the day. Yes they capitalised on individual errors but our goal as good as it was was also started from an individual error. Not a great collective performance, but still feel with inclusions of Brough, Burns, Platt, Kay and Quigley in the side we will be a different animal. Still undecided on who is going to pull the strings in midfield as we looked to lack cohesion there as a unit. But certainly not going to lose much sleep over it. We all have bad days at work and as a collective it was a bad day!
Think I would hate to play in graveyard grounds with no fans as it’s them that lift and motivate not just a pay check.
We can only have six on our bench as the 7th has to be from your academy as I understand it!

That could well be correct Mark.
Harrogate have also only had 6 on the bench in their 2 opening league matches.

[HenneysKnee]

Playing any away game (and home game tbh) without Platt and Quigley is always going to be tough, they are two of the first names on the team sheet
Not sure Dunn has got his midfield combination correct yet but when you sign so many new players that will always take time to work itself out and gel
No need to lose our heads and panic just yet, let’s have a look again in 6 weeks and see how many points we have then; end of the day only needs to be two sides worse than ourselves, people can say I am settling for mediocrity by suggesting our aim this season is purely to stay up but the amount the board have spent on the ground that has to be the aim, we have to be in the football league again next season to keep rebuilding the club and ground

[Jim]

It is clear that we don't have an attack, so we are always going to be under pressure at the back. I have been very disappointed so far with Angus - poor touch, wrong options, ineffective. Perhaps he is only good when given ball to feet and space to run, which he isn't getting. Luke James - I can't understand why we signed him. Works hard, but slow. Hindle - I still believe he could be an effective striker in the right team, given decent balls in the box, but we are not creating that sort of chance. James and Hindle too similar anyway.

The style of play worries me. It is not like last season, with ball to feet and plenty of movement off the ball. Passing it around at the back when the player is immediately under pressure is asking for trouble and, moreover, it often leads to a hurried belt forward and usually loss of possession. I noticed a stat at HT yesterday about headers won, and it was massively in Newport's favour. There are occasional flashes of the old Barrow, like the move that led to our goal, with Barry doing what Brough would do if he was on the other wing. Brown did ok defensively but there was no attacking threat down the left.

Certainly, Brough, Kay, Quigley and Platt would improve the team enormously, but I don't think they will be enough without some tweaks in the way we are set up to play.

[Matty]

Just seen the highlights on Newport's YouTube, and that second goal is awful.

[Suffolk Blue]

Most positive thing learnt s there isn't a cigarette paper between average League 2 sides and top half National League

Hellishly one dimensional but let's keep the heid

Wise words and certainly true. Though I'm still trying to work out how good the "new average" is. When the NL starts I suspect their "new average" will have dropped some.

[AugustusCorpa]

Just seen the highlights on Newport's YouTube, and that second goal is awful.

Just seen it for first time myself. He must have had his eyes closed.

[Adam29]

The people commenting about how “we aren’t playing the same as last season”
That’s mainly down the fact in this league you don’t have the time to play like that because you are shut down a lot quicker - clubs are playing us from last season at our own game with their pressing play which wasn’t happening in the national league

[Big E]

2 games in with a third of the 1st choice 11 missing. Take the 2 mistakes out and we could possibly be sitting with 4 points and all patting ourselves on the back for a good start.
Be foolish tobtry and play expansove open football, we'd get cut to ribbons.
Fed up of people harping on about Rooney, he had one good season in his career and folk talking like he would have been our answer to Messi.
As for Evatt, time will tell how things will go but it's not exactly rosy at the minute.
Let's reserve judgement for now, it's a whole new experience for everyone and im sure they are as aware of what needs to be done to sort things out.

[Jim]

The people commenting about how “we aren’t playing the same as last season”
That’s mainly down the fact in this league you don’t have the time to play like that because you are shut down a lot quicker - clubs are playing us from last season at our own game with their pressing play which wasn’t happening in the national league

Fair comment Adam. In fact, looking back, I think some clubs had worked out that was how to counteract Barrow towards the end (Jan and Feb) last season.

[Jonty]

Well clearly Evatt is going with a brand of football at Bolton that was successful at Barrow. If you look at the Bolton match stats yesterday Bolton had 64% possession and played 535 passes with a completion rate of 85% and despite getting beat their fans are largely on board with what be is trying to do there and can see that it is the end product needing polishing up. Whether it works for him there remains to be seen. Our like for like game stats yesterday are nowhere near these figures and what i’m seeing we are playing a lot longer passes.