Newport County have six matches left to save their Football League lives – three at home, three away.
The Exiles will have to send Cheltenham Town or Hartlepool United down if they are to stay up.
But County manager Mike Flynn won’t be worrying about how their rivals are getting on while his team play Exeter City away on Saturday (3pm).
They are five points from safety and Flynn says: “If we don’t win it doesn’t matter how the other teams do.
“Cheltenham and Hartlepool still have to play each other.
“We simply have to concentrate on our own performances. There is no point worrying about others until we’ve down our own job.”
Hartlepool, where former Cardiff City manager Dave Jones is in charge, travel to play Morecambe this weekend, while Cheltenham are away against Wycombe Wanderers.
Newport will be without midfield player Joss Labadie, who was sent off during their 1-0 win against Crawley Town.
Captain Labadie saw red after a confrontation with Crawley’s Welsh defender Josh Yorwerth, who was also sent off.
Newport appealed against the dismissal but that was rejected at a hearing and Labadie must serve a three-match suspension.
He will miss games away to Exeter City, at home to Yeovil and the trip to face Plymouth Argyle.
Marlon Jackson is ruled out by a hamstring injury, but Aaron Williams could be added to the squad.
Exeter manager Paul Tisdale believes there is still hope for Newport, saying: “They’ve given themselves a chance.
“There has been a change of manager a few times this year, but they’ve got Mike Flynn there, taking over from Graham Westley, and he understands the club.
Exeter won 4-1 at Rodney Parade on New Year’s Eve, but Newport are a much changed team now. Westley signed 13 new players in 2017 before making way for Flynn and Tisdale says: “We can look at the players and tactics they’ve used in the last couple of games but most importantly I’ll be using my experience of these matches at this point of the season against teams who are in a relegation position.
“I’ll be using my experience to set the tone for our performance. I think that probably trumps all kind of detail – the understanding of the relevance of the league table, with how many games to go and the points at stake. I think that is probably the leading variable in the mix going into the game.”
