Holdsworth bites back (From South Wales Argus)

Holdsworth bites back

10:25am Tuesday 2nd February 2010

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NEWPORT County manager Dean Holdsworth has hit out at continuing speculation surrounding his players.

The Exiles boss is on a high after seeing his side move 17 points clear at the top of the Blue Square South following Saturday’s 3-2 win at Bromley but he’s unhappy with what he sees as attempts to unsettle his tight-knit squad.

Despite denials from Holdsworth last week, left-back Martyn Giles is still being linked with a move away from Spytty Park in some quarters.

“Nobody is coming in or going out of the club at the moment,” said the Exiles boss.

“I’m aware that certain people are talking about my players and it’s not something I’m happy about. It’s disrespectful and shouldn’t be happening.”

Meanwhile Woking centre-back Tom Hutchinson attempted to sow seeds of doubt in the County dressing room before Saturday’s match by suggesting his side, currently second in the table, could still catch Holdsworth’s men.

“In the past couple of years both Burton Albion and Oxford held leads like this [in the Blue Square Premier] and both times it went down to the last games of the season,” said Hutchinson, whose side went on to lose 1-0 at Braintree on Saturday.

“We have been approaching the promotion battle like a marathon race, concentrating on trying to edge ahead of the next team in front of us. Now that team is Newport and it is a different sort of challenge.

“But if we could put a really good run of results together over the next five or six weeks and they have a wobble or get caught up in a fixture backlog it could be very different by the time we go to their place in March.”

With bookmakers Blue Square now quoting odds of 66-1 on that County will win promotion this season, Holdsworth can afford to ignore such mind games from his rivals.

“We’ll just concentrate on doing our talking on the pitch,” he said.

“We were awesome for a large percentage of the game on Saturday.

“Bromley came back at us well but I’m so proud of my players for digging deep and getting the three points after the tough week we had.”

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