Edinburgh's anger at manner of Exiles' defeat (From South Wales Argus)

Edinburgh's anger at manner of Exiles' defeat

6:30am Thursday 23rd February 2012 in Sport By Michael Pearlman

NEWPORT County boss Justin Edinburgh confessed his side got what they deserved in defeat at Tamworth on Tuesday and admitted they must now go back to the drawing board.

Once again inspired by skipper Sam Foley the Exiles took the lead and looked dominant for much of the contest only to succumb to two goals in the final seven minutes to suffer a first defeat in eight games.

It was a contest in which County could have put daylight between themselves and the other sides battling to avoid the drop. They remain five points above the bottom four.

They are next in cup action against Northwich Victoria on Saturday in the quarter final of the FA Trophy, but Edinburgh is furious at the squandered opportunity to move away from the basement dogfight.

He explained: “I am disappointed and mostly because I think we got what we deserved, we were great for half an hour and then things turned. Once we didn’t get the second goal we dropped off. We’ve only got ourselves to blame.

“I felt we didn’t do enough, the players seemed to think it would come easy and we were wasteful in possession and our front players didn’t retain the ball as well as they should have done.

“We will look at the goals but we know there were mistakes and the players involved have been honest enough to put their hands up in the dressing room. The attitude was right at the start of the game but I felt we didn’t keep the ball.”

Edinburgh admitted Gary Warren was missed with a hamstring injury and he hopes to have him back sooner that later.

“We had to make changes as I needed to bring Ismail (Yakubu) off because he was struggling a bit after five games out and maybe that unsettled us,” he said.

“The goals were still preventable though and we’re grateful to have Ismail back. Hopefully Gary Warren won’t be too far behind because he’s a massive player for us.”