Salford’s regret at stalemate
SALFORD City missed out on the chance to go top of League Two after being held to a 0-0 draw by 10-man Newport County.
New signing Robbie Gotts twice went close in the second half at Rodney Parade, while Ibou Touray and Tom Clarke also had good first-half chances.
And after Newport were reduced to 10-men with half an hour to go when Josh Sheehan was shown red for a challenge on Ash Hunter, the Salford forward fired over the bar in the dying minutes.
Warren Joyce, who was standing in for boss Richie Wellens who remained at home with a nonCovid related illness, believed the Ammies were the better side.
“I thought we really did well for the majority of the game, when it was 11 v 11 I thought we were in control,” he said. “We came with a game plan on not a good surface and executed it well.
“We could have been goals up before the sending off, the sending off changed the game a little bit in that we were going for the win and put more forward players on, but lost a little bit of control in the game to get the ball down on a difficult surface and try and create things.
“We were more direct maybe in the game when it was 11 v 11 and we had the extra man but we didn’t utilise it well enough.”
Joyce was impressed with Gotts, who is on loan from Leeds until the end of the season. He said: “He was bright and found a way to get on the ball in little pockets and gave us good energy from midfield and handled the ball in tight situations.”