NEWPORT County AFC manager Michael Flynn suggested that several of his players have put their Wembley place in jeopardy after a poor display in defeat at Colchester United.

County were beaten 2-0 in Essex on Saturday, four days after a 3-1 reverse at Lincoln City, as they lost successive League Two matches for the first time under Flynn.

The Exiles have slipped to 11th in the table – five points below the play-off places – as they switch their focus to Wednesday’s FA Cup replay against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley.

And Flynn is prepared to disappoint some players by leaving them out for the trip to the home of English football.

“A few of them made my decisions easy for Wednesday,” he said.

“And after their first goal we switched off, you could see the heads go down and it wasn’t good enough.”

Asked specifically of 20-year-old Swansea City loanee Tyler Reid, who made his first start at Colchester, had pushed his case for a start at Wembley, the manager said: “Not really. He needs to get fitter.

“He started bright but he blew up and you can’t be unfit against Tottenham because we’re not going to have the ball too much.”

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Flynn again insisted that the cup run has not affected his side, although he did admit that he will be happy once the Spurs tie is behind him.

“We’ve given away sloppy goals again,” he said. “It’s got nothing to do with the cup run.

“The cup run didn’t affect us before when we were winning games and it’s not affecting us now.

“It’s just we weren’t good enough and we conceded two simple goals.

“We’ve got to show some mental strength,” he added.

“They are physically fit – they kept running and running – but the quality wasn’t there.

“I think if we were still there on Sunday we wouldn’t have scored.”

After Spurs, it’s lowly Forest Green Rovers at home next Saturday and Flynn is adamant that his side can get their promotion bid back on track.

“I’ll be glad when it is out of the way, I’ll be honest,” he said of the cup run.

“We’ve just got to go back to the drawing board.

“We have got some catching up to do but we have got a big swing now in home fixtures and we’ve got to dust ourselves down and go again.”

Flynn is hopeful that both Ben White and David Pipe will be fit for Wednesday.

“Ben has a thigh injury,” explained the Exiles boss. “He wanted to travel and give it a go but it wasn’t fair.

“He’s going to have a scan and hopefully nothing’s on there and he’ll be alright for Wednesday.

“It was good to have Pipey back on the bench but I didn’t want to risk it with his hamstring and I thought we needed to have a look at Tyler and see how he stood up.”