David Hughes says Newport ‘not throwing towel in’ despite loss to Cheltenham

Newport manager David Hughes accepts his job will come under even greater scrutiny after a 2-0 home defeat by Cheltenham sent the Welsh side back to the bottom of League Two.

The visitors have clearly benefited from a new manager bounce with Steve Cotterill maintaining his unbeaten start with seven points out of nine lifting them off the foot of the table and up to 22nd.

But County’s miserable campaign took another turn for the worse as they failed to back up last week’s win at Accrington Stanley.

They are without a home win since March 15 and there were loud boos at the final whistle.

Hughes understands the fans’ frustrations but is not worried about any decision that chairman Huw Jenkins may make.

“I don’t wake up every morning worrying whether I’m going to be here tomorrow,” the Exiles boss said.

“I don’t live my life wondering if I’m going to be here or not.

“The reality of it is we need to win games, and we’re not.

“Whatever decisions there are that people make, then they’ll make them.

“As a group of staff, we’re fighting, we’re scrapping – we’re definitely not a group of people who will throw the towel in.”

Cheltenham were by far the better side at Rodney Parade and claimed the three points thanks to two superb long-range strikes from midfielder Luke Young.

The first was a volley into an empty net in the 20th minute after a poor clearance by Newport goalkeeper Jordan Wright.

“Let’s be dead straight, it should have been 0-0,” Hughes said.

“That’s the reality: an unforced error and we end up losing the game. It’s massively frustrating, hugely disappointing.

“It’s abundantly clear how we’re trying to play.

“What we’re not doing is converting opportunities to capitalise on the way we’re playing. It’s clear to see – the goals-for column needs to be better.”

Cotterill was delighted with a textbook away performance for Cheltenham.

“I think we played really well in patches,” he said.

“Some of the football we played was excellent and we did both sides of the game.

“We deserved the clean sheet. The lads worked really hard and they were two great finishes from Luke – absolutely top drawer.

“You won’t find two better goals from anyone anywhere this weekend.

“I thought a few of the boys looked a little bit tired towards the back end of the game, but that could be their training load,” Cotterill added.

“It could be my fault because I felt we needed to upgrade the training load a little bit to be able to perform better or longer, or quicker or sharper, so I might need to have a look at that.”