Newport, Newport

By BoroGuide

Trigger and Rodney

Why do you call it Dave, Trig’? Its name’s not Dave, Its Rodney” – Dave Parade’s the name, Newport County’s the game. As third games of the season, this one’s a classic – that’s why we’ve taken our fair old time about knocking out our match preview. Dig out your £6.50s because we’re going to Wales and we’re going with the intention of bumping this campaign well into gear.

It was made known to us as we sat in a sunny Stockholm park (hurdy) that we’d signed two more loanees (gurdy). In from the only proper north London team comes Connor Ogilvie, while Crystal Palace have given us a lend of goalkeeper Chris Kettings. In the grand scheme of things, these signings don’t change much – but it gives the manager options and gets him thinking.

But would you change much after a fairly solid Ipswich showing? If Dipo and David are up to it, we’d go with the same 11 from Tuesday night for this one. We looked purposeful and gave a good team the runaround for a bit – if we can apply that to League Two and the likes of Sir Casnewydd, then we won’t be too out of place in this division come the end of the season.

Us and Newport share similar starts to the season. After being defeated easily by the spending crew from Cambridge, a valiant League Cup effort at Wolves went unrewarded. It’s not out of sync with our own form – losing to the glorious champions-elect-but-oh-actually-maybe-Notts County and gave Ipswich Town a run for their money. That means something has to give.

It’s our honest opinion that last season’s outing at Newport was perhaps the worst performance we’d seen from a Boro’ side in the League. Maybe we need to get out more. We can’t, however, see this being the case on our latest visit. It feels as if there are some green shoots emerging, but just need the right care and attention – that’s why we listen to Gardener’s Question Time.

Looking at what the bookies make of this encounter, we’re the favourite child – our best price of 17/10 is closer than Newport’s 19/10, with a stalemate down as 12/5. BetVictor will give you 17/1 on Boro’ HT, Draw FT, with Tom Hitchcock 13/5 to make a goalscoring return from suspension. But we reckon you have your own opinions and you’re right to do so…

We feel rather upbeat about our prospects this weekend, but won’t be too disheartened if Teddy’s kept waiting for that first win – Mark Stimson took seven games to earn his first three points, while Graham Westley Mk II’s team didn’t win until game six of the 2008/9 campaign. The point is that the curve is looking upward at the moment, it’s just how steep it goes on Saturday.

Newport County club profile – if you don’t know them by now, you will never, never know them…