Pete Wild hails Fleetwood’s mature performance in victory at 10-man Newport

Fleetwood head coach Pete Wild praised his side for a mature display after they beat Sky Bet League Two’s bottom club Newport 2-0 to earn their first away win since August.

First-half strikes from Finley Potter and Ryan Graydon secured the win against Christian Fuchs’ basement boys, who had winger Michael Spellman sent off for two yellow cards either side of half-time.

“First of all, I thought Newport gave us a right good going over for the first 40 minutes,” Wild said.

“They were very good, put us under a lot of pressure, had lots of shots at goal and got in behind us. We had some real defending to do, but I thought we defended really well.

“We were composed, we soaked up the pressure and we dealt with the punches. That set the platform for us because when we did get our moments, we were clinical.”

Spellman went within inches of netting the opener after 20 minutes when he cut in from the right and thundered a left-foot shot against the crossbar from 25 yards.

At the other end, County goalkeeper Jordan Wright pulled off an impressive point-blank save to keep out Potter’s header.

The visitors broke the deadlock in the 44th minute as Potter ghosted in at the far post to head home an Ethan Ennis cross from close range.

And, in the fourth minute of first-half stoppage time, it was 2-0 as Mark Helm put Graydon through on goal after a quick break and he danced around the defence before coolly beating Wright.

“The timing of the goals was massive,” explained Wild. “Two really clinical finishes, especially given what had gone before. That changes the course of the game and completely alters the second half for us.

“From there, I thought we managed the game excellently. We looked like an experienced team today.”

County are still without a home win in the league since March 15 and Premier League winner Fuchs is still searching for his first victory in five match in his maiden managerial role.

“We do not help ourselves,” said the Austrian. “When we don’t do the basics right from set-pieces, don’t track the runner and then unfortunately on the transition we let the player go.

“We started bright, we were dominating the game for the first 42 minutes and with those two moments and the red card, we made life very hard for ourselves.

“We need to point the finger at ourselves. What can we do better to avoid those mistakes?

“We need to look ourselves in the mirror to see where we can get better, individually and as a team collectively. We need to stop making those individual mistakes.”