NEWPORT County AFC supporters, like all football fans, are eager for news of exciting new signings now that the season is over and done with but manager Michael Flynn is already way ahead of his predecessors in the past two summers.

Back in 2015 Terry Butcher released 13 players and saw a further three move on, leaving just seven remaining under contract at this stage of the summer.

Butcher showed Flynn the door as well as letting Lenny Pidgeley, Jamie Stephens, Andy Sandell, Ismail Yakubu, Lee Minshull, Max Porter, Robbie Willmott, Adam Chapman, Aaron O’Connor, Shaun Jeffers, Joe Parker and Kyle Patten go.

He then saw Darren Jones, Ryan Jackson and Andrew Hughes all move on to new clubs after they were offered contracts.

That left the former England captain with just five senior players – Joe Day, Mark Byrne, Kevin Feely, Andrew Hughes and Yan Klukowski – and three youngsters in Aaron Collins, Tom Owen-Evans and Kieran Parselle.

Butcher’s hands were tied to a certain extent by a big reduction to the playing budget but such a massive cull left him with a huge rebuilding job to do.

South Wales Argus:

Two years ago this week he told the Argus: “I appreciate the fans were a bit miserable last week, because all the news is about exits, but we should be able to redress that in the coming weeks.

“I would expect to have most of the squad in place before we start pre-season and hopefully we can start making some deals official sooner rather than later.

“We are close with one or two players, but it’s a tricky time of year, hard to get hold of players and agents because they tend to go away.

“But things will become clearer and we know who we want.

“We are working off an A and a B list, it’s never possible to get everyone off your A list, but we’ll do our very best to do just that.”

Sadly Butcher’s recruitment on the whole was pretty poor and he was out of the door himself after just 12 games of the new season.

And 12 months ago Warren Feeney was in a similar situation to Butcher.

He released eight players as Klukowski, Matt Partridge, Seth Nana-Twumasi, Rhys Taylor, Joe Green, Nathan Ralph, Scott Barrow and Dean Morgan were not offered new contracts.

And, while he offered new deals to Byrne, Hughes, Jones, Alex Rodman, Danny Holmes, Scott Boden, John-Christophe Ayina and Medy Elito, only Jones opted to stick around.

This time last year, Feeney told the Argus: ““There were some difficult decisions.

“It’s never nice but the club has to move forward and I want to bring in my own players.

“Some players will think they did enough but we’ve been bottom of the table nearly all season and we finished 90th out of 92 in the Football League.

“You can’t just go with what you’ve got, you have to change it round.”

South Wales Argus:

But, like Butcher before him, it left the Northern Irishman with a big job on his hands to build a competitive squad almost from scratch.

Some will argue he did a better job than Butcher with the likes of Mark Randall, Joss Labadie, Scot Bennett, Dan Butler and Sean Rigg all playing a part in keeping the Exiles in League Two.

But, ultimately, the result was the same for Feeney as he was sacked after 11 games of the new campaign.

Flynn lacks the managerial experience of Butcher and is even more of a rookie boss than Feeney was but he has several advantages over his predecessors.

As a hometown hero who has pulled off the Great Escape he has the fans firmly in his corner and after seven wins in 12 games to beat the drop he has momentum to build on.

Feeney had also won six of his first 11 games to keep the club in League Two but a run of 11 games without a win at the end of the 2015-2016 season meant he was on the back foot last summer.

Flynn also has an encouraging 15 players already signed up for next season.

The signings of goalkeeper Day and centre-back Mark O’Brien on two-year deals, in the face of competition from rival clubs, is a massive boost for the new boss as he begins his plans for 2017-2018.

He also retains Feeney signings Butler, Labadie, Bennett, Randall, Rigg, Jamie Turley, Ben Tozer, Jazzi Barnum-Bobb and Marlon Jackson, as well as Graham Westley-signing Aaron Williams.

And the signings of Tom Owen-Evans, David Pipe and Robbie Willmott will be welcomed by most fans.

Randall and Tozer may well move on this summer but Flynn has a solid foundation and there is certainly no need for him to panic buy at this stage of the summer.

There is still no news on the future of Mickey Demetriou, Jennison Myrie-Williams and Lenell John-Lewis or goalkeeping coach and reserve keeper James Bittner.

But Flynn has already stated that his main focus is to add goals to the squad and he will almost certainly look to bring in at least two new strikers before pre-season starts.

The Exiles boss may also want a young goalkeeper to act as a back-up to Day, at least one centre-back and cover at left-back and in central midfield if Demetriou, Randall and Tozer do leave.

Flynn is working hard to add to his squad before he takes a short summer break with his family, but he is already ahead of the game.