Hayden Mullins has set the tone before Newport County's first competitive match of the season. He says the squad are still three or four players short, and left-back is one position that needs cover before Saturday's trip to AFC Wimbledon in the EFL Cup.

Mullins on the gap in the squad

Mullins did not try to dress it up. He said Newport are "three or four players away" from where they need to be in squad depth, which is a fair warning this early in the season. The club are not pretending the job is done, and he is making recruitment part of the opening-week message.

The clearest issue is left-back. Mullins said the club are looking at Alfie from Bournemouth, who has been with them for a couple of weeks, and are deciding whether to take him on loan. He added that the position needs cover, or someone to push Tom Davies.

That is the kind of detail that usually gets smoothed over in preseason chatter, but Newport are not in that place. The club have already lost captain Matt Baker, Bobby Kamwa and Michael Spellman this summer, while Shaquille Gwengwe and Yahya Bamba have arrived in wide areas.

What the opener tells us

The fixture at AFC Wimbledon vs Newport County arrives with Newport's recent form still ugly, five straight defeats in the listed matches. They scored five goals across those five games, but the bigger issue is the run of losses rather than the attack alone.

AFC Wimbledon are not arriving in flawless shape either, with one win and four defeats in their last five listed matches. That gives Newport a realistic opening, but not a comfortable one, especially with Mullins still trying to add bodies before kickoff.

The point here is not that Newport need to panic. It is that Mullins is being honest about the state of the squad, and that honesty matters before a season that will run to 46 games. If the loan move for Alfie goes ahead, it will be because the manager has decided the current depth is not enough for Saturday, let alone August.

Written by Sam Whitfield with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 1 outlet. How we work →