It was our worst of the term, says Flynn

NEWPORT County boss manager Mike Flynn accepted his part of the blame for Tuesday’s 5-0 stuffing at Mansfield Town.

The Exiles supremo (above) admitted that he may have picked the wrong team after watching his side comprehensively outplayed at the One Call Stadium.

And he apologised to the 57 travelling fans who witnessed a performance that was unrecognisable from the determined display in last week’s narrow 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley.

“Six nights ago I was probably the proudest manager in the country and I’m ashamed tonight,” said Flynn after the final whistle.

“Maybe the team selection [was wrong] and if I could go back maybe I’d do something a bit different but when you concede the type of goals we did, it’s [difficult to win any match].

“It’s the first time, and it will be the last time, that the players have let themselves down professionally this season.”

Flynn refused to single out any individual players for criticism in public.

“It’s definitely the worst performance of the season but we’re in it together and they’ve given me everything [this season],” he said.

“It’s almost coming up to a year [in charge] and the boys that were here first and the new players have given me everything.

“We’ve just got to get back to basics now and we’ve got to be tough to beat because that wasn’t a Newport performance.”

County were 2-0 down after nine minutes in Nottinghamshire before captain Joss Labadie had a goal ruled out for offside.

“After the first 10 or 15 minutes it was going to be an uphill struggle,” added the manager.

“I’m not making any excuses but we’ve watched our goal and Joss wasn’t offside.

“Goals change games and that would have been 2-1 but we were poor as a whole group.

“We win and lose as a group and we’re all very disappointed.

“I feel sorry for the fans who travelled up.

“None of us want to be tarred with that brush and we’ve all got to put a reaction in on the weekend.”