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Newport County 1:0 Morecambe

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Mafoumbi Fumble Gifts Newport Three Points.

Newport County have endured a topsy-turvy season so far, probably best characterised by their last game away at troubled Oldham, where they lost by five goals to nil. Manager Michael Flynn said after this hammering:

“We were not good enough, second in every department and played off the park. They could have scored eight, maybe nine if I’m honest so 5-0 was getting off lightly. The goals we conceded were dreadful. There’s one player that can come out of that performance with any credit and that’s Dale Gorman. He’s the only one. Other than that it was dreadful.”

Harsh words indeed. Flynn’s men are generally physically big and their performance at the Globe Arena last December (when they lost 2-1) was a muscular exercise in most of football’s Dark Arts: play-acting; time-wasting and every other form of cheating imaginable – until they fell behind. Then, far too late, they started to actually play.  So why not do so from the start? Only their Manager could explain this. The Exiles have a poor record against Morecambe, having lost seven of their previous thirteen meetings and won just two. Before the defeat at Boundary Park, County had lost two more of their previous five games and won only one. However, they started the match in sixteenth place in League Two, a whole eleven points ahead of today’s opponents having played two games fewer. The Shrimps’ recent record is far better than the Welsh club’s though: they have only lost one of their last five games and drawn three. Today, though, they would be without the services of Adam Phillips after his sending-off late in the Crewe game. Dave Artell, the manager of the man who was fouled, described the offence as one of the worst tackles he has seen in twenty years of watching football – and he was shown a yellow card for his reaction to it at the time. The Shrimps’ Manager coolly responded by suggesting that The Moose should get out more and if the ex-Morecambe defender wanted to see proper serious foul play, he should look back at some videos of his own past performances. Touché, Dave…

The club unsuccessfully appealed against Phillips’ suspension during the week so John O’Sullivan found himself starting in midfield right from the off. There was also no place in the squad for A-Jay Leitch-Smith, who has picked-up yet another injury.

Concerning today’s game, DA made clear his respect for opposite number Michael Flynn but described another major obstacle his team would face today as being the state of the pitch at Rodney Parade. The ground is owned by Welsh Rugby Union side (formerly Gwent) Dragons and Derek described the playing surface before the game as `horrendous after all those rugby matches played on it’. Better news for the Morecambe boss was the reality that the Exiles’ Captain, Joss Labadie, would also be missing for today’s game following suspension: his absence at Oldham last week undoubtedly had an influence on the final result there.

Because of the scare about the Corona outbreak, there were no pre-match handshakes before kick-off. I’m not a microbiologist but this seems to me to be a pretty pointless gesture: if any of these players is infected by the Covid-19 virus, the chances are that his family and team-mates will also catch it sooner rather than later. What will happen then? Quarantine the entire club and everyone who works for it for two weeks? Quarantine everyone known to have had contact with these individuals? It’s not practicable, surely. But what do I know?

Anyway… It was dry but grey before kick-off on the Newport mudheap. The game started – and continued – in perfect harmony with the conditions:  shapeless, patchy and lacking in any real finesse. Jamille Matt had a shot from an acute angle easily saved after two minutes and then Matty Dolan tried his luck three minutes later with another shot which visiting goalkeeper Christoffer Mafoumbi dealt with relatively easily. Jordan Cranston had a trademark shot from a long way out following a corner after twelve minutes. And – as is also almost invariably the case – the shot went way over the target. Dale Gorman and Jordan Slew were both booked for a bit of silliness after 26 minutes before Robbie Willmott forced another save from the visiting keeper a minute later. There were a couple of blocked shots from both sides and Newport missed the target a couple of times but at half-time, that was basically it: nothing to excite the crowd and a poor performance from both teams.

The second half continued in a similarly dispiriting manner. After an hour, only one shot – from County’s Mickey Demetriou after 48 minutes – had gone anywhere near the target – and not very near at that. Morecambe offered nothing going forward and the next chances fell to the home team after an hour (when Matt missed with a header) and 61 minutes: Scot Bennett had a shot saved by Mafoumbi. But the goalkeeper was at fault not just once but twice as the pivotal event of the match occurred during the seventieth minute. Firstly, he made a poor attempt to punch away a routine cross and found himself in No Man’s Land as Gorman gleefully lobbed the weakly-cleared ball over him and into the back of the net as a direct result. It was the Leyton Orient loanee’s first goal for the Exiles but the mistake by the visiting goalkeeper was in keeping with the general level of play: pathetic. The Shrimps never really looked like getting back into the match despite having an effort brilliantly cleared off the line by Willmott virtually at the end of play. For their part, Newport only looked like adding to their very fortuitous goal once, when that man Gorman drew a decent save from Mafoumbi with eighty-one minutes on the clock.

The game ended in controversy as Cranston and Matt at least squared-up to each other and the Newport Manager complained he had been struck in the ensuing melee. So it was a bad ending to a wretched performance from the Shrimps. Mr Adams summed-up the game thus:

“I haven’t seen a worse game of football as a Manager or a player.”

He blamed the surface, saying that a pitch which had hosted a rugby game only the previous evening was simply not fit to play soccer on. He also conceded that his team had allowed Newport to effectively bully them by playing to their strengths: big, strong and physical.

The only thing to celebrate for Morecambe fans afterwards was the equally poor form of their nearest rivals: Stevenage lost yet again, 3-1 at Crewe and Macclesfield went down 3-0 at Plymouth. So it was As You Were at the end of the game at the bottom of the table. County’s three-point gift pushed them up one position to fifteenth in League Two.

Newport County: 1 Tom King; 3 Ryan Haynes; 28 Mickey Demetriou; 27 Ryan Inniss; 17 Scot Bennett; 8 Matthew Dolan (Y); 6 Dale Gorman (Y); 7 Robbie Willmott; 10 Josh Sheehan (C); 11 Jamille Matt; 15 Tristran Abrahams (33 Jordan Green 63’).

Subs not used: 47 JoeWoodiwiss; 21 Lewis Collins; 5 Kyle Howkins; 9 Padraig Amond; 31 Otis Khan; 22 Billy Waters.

Morecambe:  37 Christoffer Mafoumbi; 30 Ryan Cooney; 33 Jordan Cranston; 5 Steven Old; 16 Sam Lavelle (C); 4 Alex Kenyon (14 Tom Brewitt 87’); 29 Jordan Slew (Y) (18 Rhys Oates 80’); 19 Carlos Mendes-Gomes (27 Harvey Bradbury (Y) 68’); 15 Aaron Wildig; 32 Toumani Diagouraga; 7 John O’Sullivan.

Subs not used: 21 Mark Halstead; 27 Christian Mbulu; 3 Luke Conlan.

Ref: Neil Hair.

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