“I feel like I’ve arrived” – Exclusive: Newport’s Dom Telford on proving a point, modelling himself on Jermain Defoe, and his future

“I would’ve liked for it to be earlier but I feel like I’ve arrived now.”

Dom Telford has forced the EFL to sit up and take notice but despite a seminal season that saw him score 26 goals for Newport County and win the League Two golden boot, he is clear that he has no plans of slowing down.

“I want to kick on and do the same next year,” says the 25-year-old. “I was saying to Kev (Ellison) at Christmas time that I finally feel like a footballer. That sounds a bit crazy because I’ve had a decent career for still being quite young but I feel like I now know what it takes to be robust and play Saturday, Tuesday. To manage my body off the pitch to make sure I’m ready for when I’m on it.

“I want to string games together, score goals, and play at the highest level possible. It’s a summer of me working as hard as I can to make sure I come back strong and sharp, to make sure I hit the ground running and pick up where I left off.”

Of the players to score more than 20 goals in English football’s top four divisions this season, only record-breaker Aleksandar Mitrovic (0.98) has done so at a better goals per game ratio than Telford, which illustrates just how far he has come over the past 12 months.

The striker was told by Michael Flynn that he could find a new club at the start of pre-season, just five months after joining from Plymouth Argyle, but now has Newport and a number of others battling for his signature.

“It was literally just a case of pulling me into his office and telling me straight up that I’m not going to play and I’m not in his plans and he could do with my wages to recruit someone else that he had his eye on,” says Telford, recalling the day last summer that would prove something of a crossroads moment in his