Game 43 - The Exiles (H)
Team - Newport County
Date - 06/04/2026 15:00
Where - Meadow Lane

What would your starting line-up be? What will be the key areas for the Magpies to get a victory? What do you think the final score will be?

Have your say below, join in with the Pride of Nottingham match discussion.

Edited Saturday at 15:492 days by Fan of Big Tone
Correct the kick off yime

We'll need some players back - Jodi at least.

Norburn back in the matchday squad of course. For me that'd mean the bench. Just footballing reasons, we don't need both him and Palmer to beat Newport at home.

Newport are fighting to avoid relegation to the National League. They currently stand 3rd from bottom in League 2 on 33 points just 1 point above a relegation place. Newport have won 9, drawn 7 & lost 25 of their 41 matches played so far.

Newport's current form is mixed. Of their last 5 matches they have won 2 & lost 3. In their last 10 matches Newport has won 4, drawn 1 & lost 5 of those matches. They have scored 11 goals & conceded 12, having earned 13 points from a possible 30.

Newport are going to make it hard for Notts, by sitting back & challenging Notts to break them down, hoping to hit Notts on the break. It's a tactic that lots of opponents employ when they visit ML. Newport will be scrapping & hustling for every ball as if their lives depended on it. Notts will have to be at their attacking best to break Newport down.

With results going in favour of Notts on Friday, they remain in the promotion mix. A win against Newport could see them back into one of the promotion places. Lets hope that Head Coach Martin Paterson can work his magic on Monday & get ML rocking again.

Not going to be easy but no games are in this league, just hope we can get 3 points and others slip up we need players back soon if we want auto promotion I dont fancy the play offs !!!

Absolutely. The main concern is that we might not get many of the 6 injured players back at all - or have to “nurse” a couple in over the last 2 or 3 games.

The fact that Bennetts offers a decent threat from wide positions (defensively, he’s not great but better than Jones) helps, a bit. I’d like to see McDonald and Tangen fighting fit asap. Robbo would be a massive bonus but if Norburn can stay on the pitch, he is decent enough in central midfield too.

Having 2 or 3 of these blokes back in the fold for next Sat would be a confidence boost - at least, it would for me.

We could be in for a surprise or two with tomorrow's team selection. Salford away was probably seen as not the place to risk a returning player.

If you could pick just one of the injured or returning players to have back, who would you choose? (Not Platt, obviously)

I'd go with Jodi Jones....we need to roll the dice with someone capable of goals and assists.

I’ll say Robertson, but I think this is very optimistic!

Even though Newport are down the bottom and aren’t in the best form when they’ve lost matches recently it’s only been by the odd goal.

Part of me was thinking that because this match was sandwiched in between Crawley and Harrogate (which are effectively 6 pointers for them) they might treat our match like a mid-week trophy match. But they lost to Crawley, so I think the chances of them resting better players will be slim because they will be desperate to get at least a point.

But we usually react well after a defeat, a chance to right the wrongs from Salford and kick start a mini-run that can see us finish top 3. (*albeit now a tad harder by the news of Jatta's ban)

We need to start on the front foot in this for definite. Newport will want to contain us and hit on the break. If we let them settle in to the game early it could become very difficult. If we get off to a flying start and score early we should be fine.

Notts team to face Newport.

I would have liked to have seen Luker in the starting eleven instead of Kouhyar.

(1) The match kicks off.

Notts 0 Newport 0

GOOOOOAAAAAL NESS.

Another one

GOOOOOAAAAAL NESS

Keep going Notts let's give that goal difference a boost.

HALF TIME.

Good first Half from Notts. Nice to see two goals direct from corners. We need to add to our goal tally to improve our goal difference in the 2nd half.

Get a penalty.

Give it to Ness

(46) Back to it.

Notts 2 Newport 0

(65) Goal to Newport.

Notts 2 Newport 1

GOOOOOAAAAAL LUKER.

FULL TIME.

A PRICELESS WIN FOR NOTTS.

Good win and pegged back MK and Cambridge. It's tantalising - 23 wins is great but if we could just have scraped a few more draws aswell, we'd be in an even better place, pushing for the title. Still, good to be in our hands with four games to go.

MK Dons & Cambridge drew. Salford have lost. Notts are in third place.

An unnecessarily stressful second half...some players were doing their best to lose it for us.

In the end it's a fantastic day, especially with the MK and Cambridge results. Onto the big one on Saturday

A win and suddenly the world is a happy place again. Looking at the team sheet I was a little concerned where the goals were coming from and had pinned my hopes on Ndlovu or Grant to locate their shooting boots. In the end the first two (almost identical) goals came from the unlikeliest source. Following that, the whole ground visibly and audibly relaxed a little too much, and when Newport finally stepped it up and started pressing us in the second half we had a few uncomfortable moments.

In the end Luker delivered a moment of quality to seal the points before deciding he was Pele and shooting from any distance when team mates were better positioned.

What counts is that we got the job done and are now sitting pretty in the top three!

It was a strange one in that the combination of us being so tidy on the ball and Newport being so poor meant the first half wasn’t much a contest in truth. At half-time Newport had a decision to make, carry on doing what they are doing and probably lose 4-0 or go for it and just see what happens. And that’s what they did.

We didn’t really adjust to it, first half where we could have maybe 3 or 4 touches turned in 1 or 2 because they actually pressed us. I know we are limited in terms of players but it does seem like some players on the bench are just purely their because we can name 7. I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of Enoru, someone with his pace could’ve been an outlet to turn the Newport defence, I think him and Ndlovu could’ve worked nicely to alleviate some second half pressure.

I’ve been impressed with Luker since his return, he kind of showed what we’ve been missing in his 15-minute cameo. He’s not a really lightweight youngster, he’s got a decent turn of pace and obvious skill. I’d be tempted to stick him as one of our starting No.10s because he’ll cause more problems for defenders and actually looks a goal threat.

I am just nit-picking here, obviously I’m really happy with the win and performance overall especially because after the way we lost against Salford we could’ve come out looking sorry for ourselves but that didn’t happen.