Exiles boss wants fans’ boost for final run-in

NEWPORT County manager Graham Coughlan has appealed to the Rodney Parade crowd to lift his players as they aim to keep alive their unlikely play-off dream against Crawley Town this afternoon.

County’s top-seven hopes are fading after Friday’s last-gasp 2-1 defeat at relegation-threatened Colchester United and a 1-0 reverse at Barrow the previous week.

The Exiles are now five points below seventh-placed Gillingham with six games remaining and a win today against ninthplaced Crawley is a must of they are to stay in the mix.

“It will be tough to lift them after two defeats on the road, but it’s a home game and we need the energy of the crowd to lift us and get behind us,” said Coughlan.

“But we’ve also got to give them something to cheer. You can see the lads are working their socks off, but we need to be better. We need to improve and we need to freshen them up, although I don’t have too many options to change personnel.”

Coughlan does have options up front where Will Evans, Seb Palmer-Houlden, Offrande Zanzala and Luke Jephcott are all available, though Omar Bogle remains sidelined by injury.

And he hinted that he may ditch his preferred 3-5-2 system after wing-backs Lewis Payne and Matty Bondswell struggled on Friday.

“The wing-backs in this system have to service the box,” said the Exiles boss. “They didn’t. So there’s no point playing this system. If they don’t service the box, you take away a lot of our game – that’s where we get most of our goals from.

“They’re two young lads who came in to the club as cover and it’s a massive learning curve for both of them.”

Coughlan insisted his injuryhit and inexperienced squad has done well to get anywhere near the play-offs.

“We’ve missed plenty of opportunities this season,” said the Irishman. “There are points we’ve chucked away this season, there are games that we’ve come out second best in and we shouldn’t have.

“But I know the situation I’m in and the football club is in, so I was never daft enough to start getting ahead of myself regarding play-offs and all that.

“I know this bunch of lads are trying, they’re working their socks off and we just need to play week to week and win the next game. That has been our mantra all season.”