The clubs have shaken hands with Oldham Athletic; the player has not yet. Personal terms are next, and personal terms are where more deals die than anybody prints.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at Newport County training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Liam Kitching is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Newport County asked and Liverpool said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Half the programme played, position 12, 34 on the board. Doubling it is the sum every supporter has done and the only one nobody at the club will do out loud.
7 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
A loan enquiry to Manchester City: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
It needed Kion Etete to find the net to bring anything home at all: 1‑1 against Cambridge United, and half the dressing room will call it a point won.
The dugout28 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Adam Bailey chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Aaron Nemane trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Newport County know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
“I am not asking anybody to be better than they are. I am asking everybody to be as good as they are, every week.” Said out loud, in front of everybody, and the room at Newport County was different afterwards.
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at Newport County training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Max Watters is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
100 games in the shirt. Nobody sets out to build a record like that; it happens to a certain kind of player at a certain kind of club, and this town knows what it has.
Marked 7.29. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Adam Bailey chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
Cambridge United next, and one man in the Newport County dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
In brief
The dugoutAaron Nemane knocks on the manager's door
Successful dribbles: 39. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Words at Newport County training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Max Watters is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Clubs make promises constantly and the page usually only hears about them when they are broken. This one was honoured, and the dressing room noticed that faster than any supporter did.
“It is not the end of the world and it is not good enough. Both of those are true.” The manager, after a 0‑0 draw, said the honest thing and then went to say it again inside.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
The crowd waited for a goal that never came. Chesterfield defended in numbers and left with what they came for, and the two sides could be playing still without troubling a scorer.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Cheltenham Town in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Nobody at Newport County is suggesting he is out of form. The manager simply wanted somebody with a different set of qualities for ninety specific minutes, and there is nothing a player can train to fix that.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Newport County will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Max Watters was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“The supporters are entitled to be angry. So am I. We will put it right.” 0‑1, a manager saying the necessary things, and a dressing room that heard a different version of them.
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Newport County, another week without a signature from Shilow Tracey.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 30 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Liam Kitching was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Something was said to Liam Kitching and then it happened. In this industry that passes for remarkable, and the dressing room noticed faster than any supporter could.
13 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Adam Bailey after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Somebody else is better right now than Aaron Nemane
The team sheet says it in public every week until it changes. The only version of being dropped a footballer cannot argue with, and the one he takes hardest.
He used to wear the other shirt. On Saturday he plays against Notts County in this one, and whatever he says this week about it being just another game will be untrue.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Kelvin Neijenhuis has, at Newport County, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Beaten 2‑3, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Max Watters falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“We were not good enough today and I am not going to dress it up.” Adam Bailey after 2‑3, in the tone of a man who knows the next question and does not intend to answer it.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
Successful dribbles: 27. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Jordan Graham. 1‑0 against Walsall, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
12 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Newport County, and both men came out saying it was fine.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Portsmouth ended it 0‑2. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A brace, and Kion Etete takes the afternoon — 8.81
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kion Etete provided it, and the 8.81 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
The terraces21 Sep 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 6 of the 26 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
6 goals. Both benches spent the second half looking at each other rather than at the pitch. Purists will complain about Newport County and Accrington Stanley in equal measure; everybody else had a wonderful time.
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Liam Kitching, and the manager let it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 2‑4 Adam Bailey left the room before anybody could ask which.
A touch he did not want, a bounce he could not have read, and his name in the wrong column. There is no consoling a man after one of these, and Newport County will not try tonight.
He wheeled away like a man who had been carrying it for months, because he had. Newport County have their signing off the mark and one press-conference question retired.
In brief
The dugoutAaron Nemane knocks on the manager’s door
The dugoutMatt Smith dropped after a run of poor form
Terms were offered and declined. Whether it was the wages, the role or the town, nobody at Queens Park Rangers is saying, and nobody at Newport County is enjoying the guessing.
Newport County asked and Sheffield United said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Jason Harvey is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Michael Turner has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Liam Wright has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Alexander Cunningham has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Aaron Nemane has just signed for Newport County, and for once the answer mattered.
Newport County asked and Luton Town said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Newport County know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad3 Aug 2026
8 new faces, and Newport County are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Lewis Jamieson trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
36 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.