Townsend tells County to keep their heads up after another setback
NICK Townsend has told his Newport County teammates to keep their heads up despite the 1-0 loss at promotion rivals Tranmere Rovers that saw them drop to eighth place.
The play-off places may still be within their grasp – they have a game in hand and are two points adrift – but this weekend’s long trip to Colchester will be vital to try to get them back on course for a shot at promotion.
“It was a really frustrating one at Tranmere and I feel as if we should have got something out of the game in the end. With created a few good chances towards the end of the game,” said Townsend.
“We should have had a penalty as well, so it’s frustrating and a hard one to take. We tried to play a lot of football because the pitch was good, but we need to sort out the little mistakes we keep making at the back.
“We were in the game the whole way through and even at half-time we felt like we could have got something out of the game. We need to regroup as a team, focus on the next opposition and cut out the mistakes we are making.”
It was the third time in the last four games County failed to score a goal, and in 11 league fixtures this year they have only hit the back of the opposition net seven times
Add that fact to some defensive slips and it is easy to see why what looked in the first half of the season to be an unstoppable charge to promotion has hit the skids.
“We need to try to take our chances when they come because you only get one or two a game now.
“If you play at home and get an early 1-0 lead you feel like you can sit back and that’ll probably do,” added Townsend.
“So, we need to be ruthless. We got the ball down a bit more at Tranmere and created a lot more chances in the second-half.
“Even though we lost, I still felt like it was a step in the right direction for us. We are getting back to how we used to be at the start of the season.
“We’ve just got to regroup for Saturday. If we can get our heads down and get a good run of games together then we’ll get right back into it and be around it at the end of the season.”