Newport County emerged victorious against Alex Revell’s Stevenage side on Tuesday who lost 1-0 courtesy of an early Tristan Abrahams penalty for the Exiles…
It was Boro’s fourth league loss this season and Revell believes that the early minutes summed up his team’s recent run of form, stating ‘’The first five minutes summed up the last few weeks, going through, hitting the bar, missing the rebound and then conceding a penalty that was needless to concede. Going behind from that point against a team that is near the top, it was always going to be difficult for us.’’
Revell believes that his side showed enough endeavour in the game to get a result, explaining "I think that we did create more than enough chances to at least draw, if not win the game. There were crosses, shots and real opportunities to get something from the game but ultimately, we did not take them.
"We finished the game well and looked like the ones that were going to score, ending with real intent and energy but then going 1-0 down early does suck the life out of you a little bit.
"We saw a strong second half, I barely looked at Jamie Cumming in our goal and that makes the result even more frustrating."
The result keeps Newport at the summit of the Sky Bet League Two table as Michael Flynn’s side held on for their fourth league win in a row. "They don’t give away soft goals, they defend well at the back and once they got their goal, they defended for the rest of the game which is disappointing for us.
"We feel that we created enough chances to win the game but we cannot keep losing 1-0, 2-1 every week because it does not show the true identity of what we are doing every week."
Revell remains optimistic despite a recent lack of goals and downturn in results. "We are creating chances and that is frustrating as we are working on it at the training ground every day and you just hope that one goes in.
"We have to learn from these games because we saw the same thing at Forest Green in the second half. they put men behind the ball protecting a lead, making them tough to break down and we cannot allow teams to get an early lead as Newport did tonight through a really soft goal."