New man must help Newport County build for the future

Foxall and his fellow directors expect to appoint Warren Feeney’s successor on Thursday and whoever gets the job will be the club’s sixth manager in 20 months.

That lack of stability is something that the board hope to banish when the new man come in.

“You can’t keep swapping and changing your manager all the time,” said Foxall.

“It’s not Football Manager, it is people’s livelihoods and the club needs to get into a position where it’s making an investment in something.

“We’re now in a position where we need to look forward and move forward because the club needs to push on.

“Football League status is an absolute priority but we also need to look at what are we trying to build here in the future, what’s the philosophy right the way through the club?”

Foxall says the club is looking for an experienced manager to replace 35-year-old Feeney rather than another young manager.

He added: “I don’t think you can ever rule anything out but what I do think what we need is someone who’s got a pedigree in this division or above and a very experienced manager who can come in and get us out of the position we’re in.

“To a certain extent that’s what John Sheridan did last season with the run that he went on when he came in. And that’s exactly what we’re looking for again.

“But we need to build for the future and we need to reflect that in the appointment that we make.”

Foxall also suggested that funds will be made available for the new manager to add to the squad in January.

“We will be working hard behind the scenes to see what we can make available in January if they do want to strengthen the team,” he said.

“But, speaking as a fan, this set of players are a million miles away from the set of players we had last year – no disrespect to them.

“I think they’ve shown that in some of the performances but they haven’t turned those performances into results.

“They know that. They know what they need to do to turn this around.”