Newport County 27/28 Season- Second Half
Having left off 2 points clear of Crewe but with them having a game in hand, I was expecting them to win the title, or at least a close race between the 2. In the end... neither of those things happened. January saw us knocked out of both the Pizza Cup (losing on penalties to Oxford) and the FA Cup (losing 2-1 to a 90th minute goal from a Neymar corner at Southampton...) but our league record was 4 wins and 1 loss (getting spanked 3-0 by Orient who beat us 7-1 over the 2 games somehow). January transfer business was basically non-existent. We went in for a new RB who chose Sunderland over us, a new keeper who signed a new deal with his own team, and a new LB who we got priced out of. As a result our only signing was an unemployed Josh Kayode, previously of Rotherham, who came in and immediately created 2 goals off the bench to turn a 1-2 deficit around and see us win 4-2 at Crawley in the most significant January match.
February saw us win 5 out of 5 and then March started with 3 wins on the bounce too, taking our total wins in a row to 9. This meant that with 7 league games to go, we would secure promotion if Cheltenham failed to win against Wycombe. They scored a 87th minute winner to make us wait, and then we only managed a 2-2 draw at lowly Sutton to extend the wait even longer. Our next game was Yeovil at home and before that Crewe (2nd) played Pompey (3rd) in a game that was moved for TV. Pompey beat them 4-0 in a result that meant if we beat Yeovil we would not only be promoted, we would be champions. Kayode opened the scoring and old man Bogle came off the bench to net twice in a routine 3-0 win that sent us up as champions with 5 games to spare. The scheduling of the league then got really weird. We had a 3 week break before our next game and just like last season we came out of a long break looking like shite. We lost 5-2 at Cambridge and then after ANOTHER 2 week break lost 1-0 at Stevenage (though we bossed the game). 5 days later we made it 3 losses in a row going down 2-1 at home to Exeter but a 2-1 win at Shrewsbury (after another 10 day break...) meant the final game against Crewe was important. A win would see us break the all time wins record and the all time points record. We delivered, beating them 2-0, meaning despite out shit end of season form we end up like this:
Newport- 104
Crewe- 91
Portsmouth- 90
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Cheltenham- 87
Orient- 79
Exeter- 79
Stockport- 78
Marc Francois the youngster we had on loan from parent club Palace was our player of the season, scoring 7 and creating 15 assists (honestly if they tracked the number of goals where his pass was the most important one in the move but not the actual assist i'm sure he'd have a ton) and an average rating of 7.38 from 50(2) games. Riley (on loan from Lincoln, and the loan has been renewed), Drysdale and new boy Koyode also managed average ratings of above 7.20. Goals wise, old man Bogle lead the way with 32 goals in 32(22) games and McCausland managed 19 in 55 starts, most of which were on the wing. Riley seemed to go off the boil after a hot start and ended up with 16 goals and 13 assists from 43 games.
Squad wise I think we have a good base to plan for life in League 1 but there is work to do. 3 of our 4 starting defenders were on loan so the position will need to be addressed, although Will Reddie is out of contract and loves the club so hopefully we might be able to make something happen if Bolton don't renew him. Our midfield and wingers are solid but we will have to look for a Francois replacement as he's already turned down an extended loan. We could still do with a striker so we aren't so reliant on Bogle who will be 35 by the time the new season kicks off. We also might have an issue with McCausland as I might have promised him new training facilities to get him through the door.... but we'll see what happens there.
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Originally Posted by Bam
