Newport County star confident of promotion push next season

Willmott signed a new two-year deal in February, which runs until June 2021, but several other key players are out of contract this summer.

And the Exiles wide man admits that the likes of Joe Day, Dan Butler, Mickey Demetriou, Mark O’Brien and Joss Labadie may be tempted by a move to play at a higher level.

Speaking after Saturday’s League Two play-off final defeat to Tranmere Rovers at Wembley, Willmott said: “It’s going to be tough to keep everyone together.

“There’s a lot of players in this team who can play higher and deserve to play higher and I think, given the opportunity, they will do that.

“Obviously, we want to keep everyone together. But sometimes you’ve got to let players move on and we have trust in the gaffer to get it right.

“There’s always a big turnover of players here, we do it every year and I’m pretty confident we can do it again.”

Flynn has been linked with the vacant Swansea City job over the past week, but Willmott is hopeful that the manager will stay to rebuild the squad and challenge for promotion again next season.

“I know the gaffer personally and what he’s done for this club is amazing,” said the 29-year-old.

“He does really get the best out of his players and he’s going to get a lot of attention now.

“We’ll see what happens, but hopefully the club can keep him and we can go one better next season with us.”

Willmott felt County should have had two penalties before O’Brien was sent off in the final minute of normal time and Connor Jennings headed the Rovers winner in the 119th minute.

“It’s disappointing,” he said. “It’s been such a long season and we feel a little bit robbed, to be honest.

“But it’s been an unbelievable season; to go one better in the FA Cup and to get to the play-off final, which no-one expected us to do.

“We just go away now and relax and look to build again for next season.

“We’ll use this pain to fuel us and look to push on for promotion and go one better.”

And Willmott believes the club’s success in the league and cups this season will attract new talent this summer.

“The club has grown massively in the last two years with the quality of players we’re getting in and hopefully the training ground gets sorted now,” he said.

“We’re really building and I think we look like more of an attractive outfit now.

“I think certain players looked at us as before and thought it was easy to get a deal at Newport County because we were down the bottom, but now you’ve got to earn a contract here.”