League Two: Stalwarts back for Newport County against Salford

Goalkeeper Day and central defender Demetriou missed the New Year's Day trip to Walsall after testing positive.

County had a final round of coronavirus testing on Friday morning and their only positive case this week was a development player, while one other individual has been in isolation.

The Exiles shipped three goals for the second successive game in the draw at Walsall and struggled with set pieces at Bescot Stadium.

That suggests a swift return for Demetriou is a no-brainer but the call is tougher in goal with Nick Townsend, who shared starts with Tom King last season, hoping to keep his spot.

“Nick did really well last week, it's a decision to be made this morning. I've got in my mind what I am going to do but I am not going to give that away,” said manager James Rowberry.

Scot Bennett and Mickey Demetriou

Defender/midfielder Scot Bennett replaced Demetriou when he slotted in next to James Clarke and Matty Dolan on the left side of a three at Walsall.

"Mickey gives you natural balance to build and play because of his left foot, but Scot is comfortable receiving the ball on his left side anyway,” said Rowberry.

"Ask him if he rather play left-sided centre-half or right-sided centre half and he'd say that he'd do a job wherever, that's the type of character that he is."

County have kept just one clean sheet since the boss took the reins in mid-October but he insists it’s not a system issue that comes with an expansive approach.

DENIED: Walsall struck in injury time to draw against County

“In the 10 games that I have been here, we have conceded the least amount of shots on target. We were conceding 2.9 shots a game on our goal, which is the lowest in the league,” he said.

“For me, it's a concentration thing. Take the last two games out of it and we tend to dominate possession of the ball.

“We tend to dominate the game with the ball, with shots at goal and with expected goals, it's just key moments of the game where we need to focus more as a collective.

“We always work on the four moments of the game - attacking and defending, attacking transition, defending transition - in all our training sessions.

“We recognise as a collective that we've got to try and defend a bit better but at the moment we are seventh and in the play-offs, looking to progress as high up the division as we can.

“I'd like to get more clean sheets – it’s one in 10 since I've been here, against Stevenage.

“That's something we need to improve but we are getting results and performances are reasonably good, we just need to keep building on what we are doing.”