Managers Preview of Newport County v Exeter City

Both managers have been frank in their public utterances ahead of Sunday’s League 2 game.

Paul Tisdale accepts no responsibility for the predicament that the Club finds itself in. Talking on the Club’s website he said:-

I’m asking them to apply themselves in the same way they have been – I’ve never seen a lack of application or discipline or any lack of loyalty to their teammates at the club. We’ll keep doing our very best.

The lines are very fine between winning and losing and we have to believe that we will get the required points if we do the right things, and I see nothing but positive reactions from the team, and especially from those that are not in the team, which says a lot about the squad we have.  Everyone is pulling in the right direction – so as always, I can’t complain about the players.

We can debate mistakes they make and decisions they make, but in terms of characteristics, I’m happy with what they are showing me. I don’t see one player in the team or out of it showing signs of disaffection or dissent, or being self-indulgent with their own issues.  They’re all pulling together and that makes me very proud – and we have to turn that into results.

The lines are fine – we have been in every game, and since we played Chesterfield before Christmas, every game has been decided by one goal that we have played in and in every game there is an argument to say that we missed a chance to win it.

Recently we have been very positive in the way we have played in getting players forward, and then have been caught out with the odd counter-attack.  We have also missed the odd glaring chance when games have been in the balance.  I’ve not seen any team pin us back for a long, long time. But I know the scoreline has to give us results.  We have to stay cool, win or lose, and if we win on Sunday we won’t be jumping around either.

County’s manager spoke more on the Sunday’s match:-

We play Dagenham & Redbridge Wednesday and that is one of our games in hand, we are looking forward to being in front of our fans again and playing home. Exeter City will be a tough game but players are coming back into contention and they are raring to go for Sunday.

Talking to the South Wales Argus, Edinburgh also said:-

As a manager I was looking at the play-offs and it may have been a step too far. We’ve got to rediscover that winning formula. That’s all we’re looking at; we’re not looking up or down.

The effort and the commitment of the players is there but the results haven’t and we’ve got to turn that round. We’re on a real difficult run right now. We’re fully aware of that and we know we need to do something about it very quickly. But we’ve got to remain positive because we have been competitive even in the games we’ve lost.

We’ve sat down with the players this week and shown them a lot of footage from early in the season, trying to put that psychological twist on it. We’re trying everything we can and I’m confident that we will turn it around but we have to do less talking and more doing.

There is great togetherness here. If we’re going to do anything it is as a collective and that’s myself, my staff, the players and supporters.

The Exeweb.com match preview can be found here.