Preview: Newport County versus Port Vale, League Two, Sept 7th 2019

Can Vale do better than their last away outing as they travel to South Wales to take on the Exiles.

Team news

Vale have confirmed that Manny Oyeleke (right) will miss out on this game but despite the midfielder’s loss, they have some interesting selection choices ahead. Askey took the chance to shuffle the pack for the Football League Trophy win over Shrewsbury (watch the highlights here) and one player to shine was Jordan Archer. Will the former Bury man come into the Vale attack for the trip to Wales?

Opponents Newport have injury problems with Lewis Collins injured in midweek. Danny McNamara is away on International duty and new signing Dominic Poleon could make his debut. However, Newport’s midweek Football League Trophy match against West Ham U21 was dominated by the sending-off of former Vale loanee Ryan Inniss for an alleged bite. Newport boss Michael Flynn was reportedly livid and Inniss could conceivably get a long ban for his offence.

More headlines

Away from the game the main news has been the departure of Ben Whitfield (right) and we’ve got a round-up of how Ben and some other former Valiants have fared. There’s not been a great deal to come out of the club this week but as we’re well into the season you may want to look at our ratings for the new Port Vale signings.

Stats

The Valiants have yet to beat Newport County since their return to the Football League. The record so far is three draws and a loss. The last encounter was back in January as it ended in a goalless draw at Rodney Parade. The last Vale player to score against County was Tom Pope (right) who netted in a 2-1 loss at Vale Park last season.

Connections

There are two well-known former Vale loanees in the Newport backline in the aforementioned  Ryan Inniss (right) and Kyle Howkins. Both central defenders have previously been linked with moves to the Valiants. Inniss has courted controversy this week after being sent-off in midweek for an alleged biting incident.

Looking a bit further back, players to appear for both clubs in recent years include midfielder Sam Foley, forward Sean Rigg, midfielder Tommy O’Sullivan and that placid, non-controversial character Ryan Burge.

Pre-match chat

We’ve got a lot of tough games coming up but it’s important we try and keep that feel-good factor, especially here and it couldn’t have worked out any better, so really pleased and we just concentrate now on the Newport game….

Port Vale manager John Askey (right)

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