Cambridge United boss impressed by Newport County 'team ethic'

The two sides meet at Abbey Stadium tomorrow afternoon with County aiming to record a seventh successive win over the U’s.

And Calderwood is full of admiration for the way that the Exiles have been transformed by manager Michael Flynn, assistant Wayne Hatswell and management consultant Lennie Lawrence over the past two-and-a-half years.

“Newport are a really dangerous side and I’ve got a lot of respect for what Michael and Lennie do down there,” said the former Nottingham Forest boss, who took over at Cambridge last December.

“If we beat them then we’ll have earned a victory that not many teams will do this year.

“They’re very hard to put away in a game, I think they’re record shows that.”

“The respect for Newport is borne out of what they are what they’ve proved to be in the league and not just against us,” he added.

“I think they’ve been very difficult opponents for lots of people and they have an obvious goal threat from various angles.

“They have various ways of scoring goals, they’re filled with really good competitive players and they have a team ethic that we’re striving to get to.”

Asked about his side’s poor record against Flynn’s men over the past two seasons, the Scot said: “They haven’t beaten us this year yet!

“We obviously want to change the record but I can’t imagine anyone’s worried about what happened last year or the year before that in terms of tomorrow’s game.”

Cambridge won just seven of their 19 home games in League Two last season as they finished 21st.

And Calderwood wants to see a big improvement at the Abbey this term.

“Irrespective of whether it’s Newport or Newmarket, we’ve got to be trying to win [at home],” said the U’s boss, whose side earned an impressive draw at relegated Bradford City with 10 men on the opening day.

“We’ve got to make sure we get more home wins that we did last year.

“We’ve got to galvanise the fans and get them to come again, to really enjoy what they’re seeing and take delight in being a Cambridge supporter.

“We want them to get behind us as the fans who travelled to Bradford did.

“We’ve got to keep moving forward, slowly, positively and do something,” he added.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll win the game, but we want to give it such a go that it becomes unbelievably unlucky not to.”