Joe Day makes a landmark 200th appearance for Newport County in their League Two match against Tranmere Rovers at Prenton Park this afternoon.
“I’ll be really proud to hit the 200 games total, he says. “I’ve become become a fan of our club and Newport County is a big part of my life now.
“When the club became fan-owned I got involved as much as I could. I signed up as a Trust member and felt I could be part of something.
“I’ve been living in South Wales since I signed permanently. I moved down with my wife and my little boy was born in Abergavenny so this feels like home to us.”
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Former Peterborough goalkeeper Day will start for County in what is a crucial fixture for the Exiles after a crushing 6-0 home defeat against Yeovil a week ago.
“I was as disappointed as anybody,” said Day, who has spent four years at Newport. “My personal performance was nowhere near good enough. That hurts and you rely on your mental strength to get over that. All we can do is make sure we put it right.
“We know we can defend well, we have defended well, and Yeovil was just one of those games.
“You can over-analyse everything but it was a blip and we have to make sure it stays as a blip.
“We’ll stick together as a group and get back to what we’ve been doing.
“But I know words can be cheap so we’ve got to make sure we do our talking on the pitch.”
Newport are third in the table and Day insists, despite that six-goal hammering, they have enough quality in the squad to compete with the leading clubs.
“We have a really good group,” he said. “The bond in the dressing room is as strong as I can remember here and the standards we’ve set ourselves is the best it’s been since I’ve been here.
“I take confidence from that. We can go on and have a good season. This group of players have put our good start together and we have to bounce back.”
Micky Mellon’s Tranmere are unbeaten in five games and won 2-0 at Carlisle United in their last fixture and are eighth on 13 points, three behind County.
Robbie Willmott starts a three-match suspension after being sent off against Yeovil, while Andrew Crofts has an Achilles problem won’t be involved.
“Andrew has a little bit of swelling on the back of his Achilles, said manager Michael Flynn “It’s just a precaution and the first time that Andrew has missed games with a muscle injury for two years. It’s frustrating him.
“He’s dying to get on the pitch, but we need to be careful.”
Flynn has pledged token with his senior players despite the horror show against Yeovil and says: “It would be easy to make wholesale changes, but we won’t be doing that.
“There might be one or two changes, but the boys who have taken us into third place so far have shown that they are not bad players.
“We had a team meeting on Monday. It would have been easy to get out on the grass quickly, but there were a couple of things I wanted to identify and put right.
“I had chats with individual players because it’s always good to hear what a player is thinking and what frame of mind they’re in.
“I’ve wanted to see how they are this week to see if anyone is feeling sorry for themselves or if anyone [who didn’t play] is over-excited or cocky because we’ve lost but there is none of that.
“We have a good group and they have a strong bond.”
Newport County AFC, possible (3-4-1-2): Day, Pipe, Franks, Demetriou (capt), Bennett, Butler, Bakinson, Dolan, Sheehan, Amond, Harris.
