Newport (H) predictions

could be a good fixture to give Tombola a go.

It's taken me nearly 48 hours to emerge from under the duvet after that performance on Saturday. Cambridge were comfortably the worst side we've played this season, and clearly utterly devoid of confidence, but their win had an inevitability about it. You'll win, don't know by how many, but it could get messy. We seem to have less trouble scoring (every game apart from at Donny) than in previous seasons, but I shudder to think what Bogle might do to our "defence". Parkin (no, don't laugh) is by a distance our best player. Hard-working and with a great touch and football brain. As well as being able to inflict GBH on opponents. Rigg is half-decent. A couple of attacking loanees (Healey and Grego-Cox) at least look interested. Tozer has a proper long throw, that we have no idea how to capitalise on. And that's about it. As StevetheFish says above, we look shite. Because we are.

S the F gets one thing wrong, though. We've somehow won three seasons running at Portsmouth, and they've yet to score against us!

Am I travelling up, am I...

Hi Newport Fan

What's your opinions on Paul Bignot ?

Quoted from Davec

Hi Newport Fan

What's your opinions on Paul Bignot ?

The fact he said they've got no defence gives you a clue!  

He's certainly been as guilty as anyone in our back four, but every one of them has played poorly too often. The signs aren't promising that he'll be up to League Two standard, however. I know that won't come as a surprise to Grimsby fans, but I so wanted him to do well on his return to us. In 2009/10, we walked Conference South, by 28 points. We had a lot of 1-0 wins that season and I'd never before (and definitely not since!) gone to games KNOWING we wouldn't concede. That had a lot to do with Biggy. The following season, in Conference Premier, he swept the board for the various player of the season awards and then got his big money move to Blackpool, just relegated to the Championship. Since then, he's not impressed anywhere, it seems, as you can attest!  I can't bring myself to be too hard on him, though. Of the three players who have shared right-back more or less equally this season, he still looks the most adept. I remembered Turley as a thuggish centre-half with FGR, with zero footballing ability. For us, he's been the same except, when deployed at full-back, he's even more painful to watch. Barnum-Bobb is a lightweight, who seems to think he'd be better off on the wing, or at least as a wing-back, without having any of the requisite skillset. Bignot at least understands the basics of full-back play, albeit that he is no more effective going forward than the other two.

Probably a longer answer than you wanted, but there you go.

People saying Newport are too small for the league ,  I'm basing it on attendances only but there's 5 or 6 teams that get lower than them in league 2 . As Paul says "there's no easy games in league 2"  and we will have to be bang on it to get a win . Hoping for 4500 tomorrow night with it a night match , would hope for 5k+ against hartlepool though especially with the returning lads . Hoping they get a decent reception as they did get us out of that hole down below .

Ohh and for the prediction 2-1 Town . Davies 2 free kicks . UTM

Town 2  Newport 1
Bogle & Tuton
Healey
4275  ( 63 of them)

They are a bit of a bogey team and I fear what happened last time we played them at BP might be repeated. Bus parked, last minute break away 0-1.
However, optimism prevails, 2-1 town, Pearson breaks the deadlock on the hour with a towering header, Davis free kick before a late consolation from the beast.
4651

We've been here before with games like this. On paper it looks fairly easy but we still struggle at home if the opposition closes us down in midfield and we still don't seem to be able to change our game plans to combat this.

Early goal(s) are the key in these matches. The longer we go without scoring the harder it gets as their confidence grows. If possible, get the job done by half time. Go for it. UTM.