NEWPORT County AFC striker Padraig Amond has joked that the players will handcuff manager Michael Flynn to the bench to keep him at Rodney Parade.

Flynn was the bookmakers’ favourite to take over at Lincoln City last week and did hold talks with the League One club before deciding to stick with County.

The Exiles boss informed the players on Monday and Amond says the news came as a huge boost for the whole squad and backroom staff.

“That’s a big, big thing for us,” he told iFollow Exiles. “No one wanted him to go, the players didn’t want to lose him, which is selfish of us because it’s his career as well.

“It’s a weird one because we want him to do the best he can do but at the same time we don’t want to lose him.

“We’ll keep handcuffs on him and cuff him to the bench at Rodney Parade and hopefully we can have him for a long, long time and be successful together, players and staff.”

South Wales Argus:

Amond scored his fifth goal of the campaign in Tuesday’s 1-1 draw at Macclesfield Town on Tuesday night.

It was an improvement from a poor performance at Northampton Town last Saturday, when County’s 17-match unbeaten run in regular-season games was ended by a 2-0 defeat.

“It [the speculation] didn’t affect us on Saturday,” insisted Amond.

“Saturday was just a terrible performance from us but one bad performance in 17 isn’t a bad little go.

“It was going to happen eventually. That’s no disrespect to ourselves, we tried very hard on Saturday but it just wasn’t our day.

“It was just one of those days where we could have been there until Sunday and still not have scored.

“But it was really good of the manager to tell us [in a team meeting on Monday] and we were thrilled.

“We’ve had a bit of banter about it and that’s the way we work at this football club, we are a really close bunch, staff included.

“We have to be like that because quite a lot goes against us at times and we have to stick together. If we can stick together, we’ll hopefully be a force to be reckoned with this season and we’ll see where it takes us.”

Next up for the Exiles is a home clash with League Two leaders Exeter City on Saturday afternoon and Amond is hoping that they can build on the midweek draw and use the positive news on the manager to get back to winning ways against the table-toppers at Rodney Parade.

"It’s massive that the gaffer is staying," said the Irishman.

"But we want to move on now to the weekend and use that news as a positive little spin for ourselves to get us going again."

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