Still expects Magpies to be a force this season

The Magpies suffered relegation from League One last term and although, like Luton, haven’t got off to the best of starts this season, Still expects them to be challenging at the right end soon.

He said: “They’ve some good players, (Jonathan) Stead and (Izale) McLeod upfront, they’re two decent forwards.

“They’re probably a club that would be disappointed to have come down and want to get back as quick as they can.

“They made some changes, staff wise and at this stage of the season, everyone’s still trying to settle down.

“I know if they perform to the quality they have in their team, I think they’ll be a force this year I really do, along with quite a few clubs.

“They probably feel like us, a bit wounded, where results haven’t quite gone for you and there’s two ways that you can take it.

“You can look at your team and make an honest assessment and say on another time you might have four or five more points, or you look at it, we haven’t been good enough.

“I don’t know really where they’ll put themselves.”

The Magpies swapped managers back in April with Shaun Derry leaving and Dutchman Ricardo Moniz appointed, although he couldn’t prevent County’s drop into the fourth tier of English football.

Still admitted he didn’t know a great deal about his counterpart, saying: “I don’t know him at all, but if he does this job, he’s got to be good as it’s a tough job.

“There’s only 72 in this country that manage, so he’s got to be good, know his job, be organised, understand players and he’s brought some decent players in, so he’ll be good as they all are at their job.”

Moniz was incredibly busy during the summer as he drastically overhauled the County squad, including making a host of foreign signings.

On his additions, Still added: “At the top level, I think most players that moved this year were foreign players. Does that make them better or worse than English players? In my opinion, some are, some aren’t.

“If you start to come down the leagues, we probably bring more English players or British players in, but because of his nationality he probably knows other avenues and feel they might be the right avenues to him.”