Manager Rob Edwards vowed to keep fighting and told his players they cannot give up after rock-bottom Wolves’ humiliating campaign continued with a 2-0 home defeat to Brentford.
Keane Lewis-Potter’s second-half brace secured the Bees’ victory at Molineux, where Jorgen Strand Larsen saw a late penalty saved by Caoimhin Kelleher and the home faithful made their fury clear.
Wolves’ 10th successive top-flight defeat means they have a paltry two points after 17 matches, equalling the Premier League record low set by Sheffield United in the 2020/21 season.
Newport’s fourth-tier team of 1970/71 are the only other side in English league history to have recorded so few points at this stage, but Edwards pledged to keep going.
“We have to (keep fighting),” he said. “I just said it to their lads in there now ‘you can’t give up’. That would be mental.
“I said ‘I’m standing in front of you now, I’m going to fight, and I know all the staff are with me and are going to fight, and I need all of the lads to come together and help each other and fight as well’. That’s what we have to do.
“Yes, it’s an extremely difficult situation we’ve come into and obviously it’s continuing that way at the moment in terms of results.
“I don’t feel that way when we’re around the training ground. I feel the lads are with us and they’re really trying hard.
“We’ve seen an improvement in the last couple of weeks in training and the work they’re doing.
“We have to keep believing and then doing the right things and you hope then things will turn.
“We have seen games where it’s been really close and could have gone either way and we’re coming off the wrong end of those at the moment.
“We’ve got to stop making basic errors. We’ve got to keep trying to do the right things to avoid doing that.”
Asked if he had any regrets about leaving Middlesbrough to take the Molineux post last month, Edwards laughed and then said: “No, none at all.
“I knew it was going to be difficult. I’m well up for the challenge and I just said that to the lads in there as well.”
While it seems a matter of when rather than if Wolves are relegated, visitors Brentford moved 10 points clear of the relegation zone with Saturday’s victory.
Bees boss Keith Andrews, who began his playing career at Molineux, said: “I genuinely thought it was always going to be a difficult game.
“There’s no divine right to win games. This is Rob’s sixth game in charge and in the previous five games they’ve been drawing at half-time, and they’ve played teams like Arsenal, Aston Villa.
“So, it’s no divine right to come in and expect you’re going to score a goal in the first 20, 30 minutes and just stroll around Molineux. You’ve got to earn that right.”
