Evans up to his tricks as below par City edged out: Imps 0-1 Mansfield

It was a case of the match never living up to the billing, the clash of two fancied sides in League Two never got out of second gear as the combination of well-organised defences and lacklustre forwards meant the odious Steve Evans got the win he so desperately craved.

For the course of this article, my self-imposed ban on being mean to him is lifted because he simply gave me so much material I’d be fearful not to mention him. I’ll strive to cover the game first before I move on to the morbidly obese ball of anger and his nasty little sidekick.

It was nice to see yet another packed Sincil Bank, and although the away end was full it didn’t create the sort of noise Luton had the week before. Mansfield don’t have a great repertoire of songs, unfortunately, whilst we had one for most of our outfield players they just kept singing for Danny Rose, despite him being on the bench. Perhaps that was just prophetic, but if the noise level was anything to go by, City had the upper hand.

I sat in the Selenity Stand for the first time this season, and it is the first time I’ve seen block seven all bouncing together. Fourth tier of English football? That’s second-tier support at worst. The Coop stand is an awesome sight when it is full, and I’m almost jealous I don’t sit across the other side all the time. I got a cushion on my seat and the people next to me were not practically sat in my lap, so the Selenity Silence stand does have it’s good points.

There was some pre-match interest surrounding the team sheet which few seemed to have really picked up on. The ongoing discussions around Matt Rhead seem to have distracted fans from the fact captain Luke Waterfall has been dropped. On Tuesday it was to ‘freshen’ things up, but yesterday? There’s no doubt Rob Dickie is good player, I think he brings more in terms of ability to the side then Luke. Luke is a ‘blood and thunder’ defender, whereas it appears Rob is more defined and cautious. Has the old order shifted now?

Nathan Arnold is still struggling to, I believe it is a knock-on effect of the tackle against Luton but I may be wrong. There have been mutterings of a potential broken bone in his foot, but I’ve had nothing confirmed. I do think he is a loss, and had he been available I suspect we’d have seen another change to the starting line-up.

I’m not being down on Matt Rhead when I kept predicting him dropping to the bench, I’m being honest. I think Matt has loads to offer the team, but he might be more effective in the final fifteen minutes as opposed to the first half-hour. He spent most of yesterday’s game frustrated, being fouled and Mansfield getting away with it, or flicking the ball on and then being unable to catch up with play sufficiently to have an impact. I suspect this was the situation Matt was in a couple of years ago when Mansfield came up, and by his determination and application, he dropped down to the National League and earned himself the right to be here again. However, I strongly feel that number 10 role is destined for someone else, someone of such sublime talent who we have only really seen ten per cent of at present.

Billy Knott obviously. I assume you knew that? Did you know that as a youngster Billy was at Real Madrid and that the Spaniards even paid for a house over there for his parents? No, me neither. How good must he be once we get him firing on all cylinders?

Anyway, we had best of the opening exchanges, man-on-a-mission Matt Green created a chance for Billy Knott, but his effort was blocked. Mansfield hadn’t settled at all, and of the two sides you’d suspect it was the ones in red and white that were paying their centre forwards £2.5k a week. Man-on-a-mission Lee Angol, one recipient of the abhorrent wages, looked a frustrated figure, nothing like the energetic player we had last season. If I were a betting man I’d say his body language and work rate suggests a move motivated simply by pound coins and not a desire to succeed.

It was Angol that was brought down 25-yards from goal around the 30-minute mark, and the stocky little midfielder Alex MacDonald’s fired wide of Farman’s post. They were tentative exchanges at best, the closest either side came in a tense match of few openings and few neat passages of play. MacDonald was a constant source of menace, but looks to be a horrible little bugger, a player in his manager’s image.

I thought the likeliest to score would be Lincoln, and as half time approached we seemed in the ascendancy. One City effort was saved spectacularly, not by keeper Conrad Logan, but by Stags defender David Mirfin. I know we’re not a team to bemoan hard luck, but when your hands are raised to you face and the ball hits them, it’s a penalty. Still, the Stags held firm and as the rain subsided, the half ended without a goal.

The expensively-assembled Mansfield forward line of Kane Hemmings and Lee Angol was looking completely ineffective. Sean Raggett had his usual commanding game at centre half, and eventually, Hemmings was replaced by Danny Rose, much to the joy of the travelling fans. Now, finally, their favourite player was on the pitch, and sadly it was him that got the only goal of the game shortly after.

Early in the passage of play a foul on Alex Woodyard was ignored, and the ball eventually found its way out to the right-hand side. Hayden White showed great pace down the line, the sort of pace that left Sam Habergham in his wake. Fully fit Sam might have stopped the cross, 95% Sam did not. The ball went across the six-yard box, waiting for a keeper to claim it maybe, but instead Danny Rose rose highest to nod the visitors into an undeserved lead.

It was less than Mansfield deserved, but in truth it was the only truly clear-cut chance of the game. After that we pressed hard, but at 0-0 the Stags were running out of ideas, at 1-0 they had a simple plan: defend the lead. Despite an introduction of pace in Josh Ginnelly and the arrival of Ollie Palmer (who that Stags also have a song for), City simply didn’t open up the resolute defence. At the end of the whistle Evans bounded onto the pitch as if he’d won the FA Cup, omitting the obligatory handshake and celebrating in front of his fans. How satisfying it must be to finally get a win over Lincoln too.

That’s the match action over with, my summary would be two teams cancelled each other out, one assembled at great cost but with no real plan other than ‘get up and at them’, the other Lincoln. We lacked finesse in the final third, but it isn’t a case of ‘not having a goal scorer’ or even ‘lacking goals from all angles’. If I’m brutally honest I think it’s a case of playing with 10.5 men rather than eleven, because if Rheady is involved in an early passage of play, he struggles to enter the later phase too. It isn’t a criticism of him, I hope this doesn’t have people commenting ‘yeah, he’s done’, because he isn’t. He’s still a good player, he’s still an option but he needs to be the plan b. I suspect Simeon Akinola would have been plan a, but we all know what happened there. I also suspect if Ollie Palmer was better in the air, he might partner Matt Green, but he isn’t and so he won’t.

I was lucky enough to be in the VIP bar afterwards for the presentations of Man of the Match and Young Imps awards. Billy Knott got the main award and he trudged in looking like someone had just burned his favourite childhood teddy bear. The cameras came up and to his credit he forced a smile, then as soon as the flashes stopped he was morose again. He said what we all thought, there had been a clear-cut penalty in the first half and he was disappointed. Later on Matt Green came up to, similarly as disappointed. This result hurt the players, and whilst I suspect many fans have walked away thinking ‘one point from the play-offs’, the players thought no such thing. One by one they trudged into the SRP Player Lounge and sat, ashen-faced, as the sponsors and VIP’s slowly dispersed. I was with Paul Smith, and he told me stories about Paul Raynor I can’t repeat. Paul was a right back to Raynor’s left winger slot for a while.

Onto the antics of Steve Evans. All afternoon him and his ridiculously angry assistant Raynor were in the referee’s ear, the whole time they were berating the Lincoln bench, arguing and niggling. I sat just a row behind them, and I picked up on every word. He’s a foul-mouthed man, angry to the extreme and will claim anything at all. Even the most blatant of free kicks he contested, I have no doubt the foul on Woodyard in the build-up to the goal was ignored because of him and his bodyguard. It was right in front of his dugout and he’d been in the ear of the linesman all afternoon. At one point, stood right by Evans, the linesman gave a throw-in the opposite way to the referee. I think the ref was correct, but he changed his decision and went with the linesman. I’m not sure about pantomime villains, they’re more like Bond villains.

I understand we’re not always a nice side and I wouldn’t expect anything less of Mansfield either, but what we have is good grace before and after the game. Danny approached the Mansfield dugout before the game to shake hands, but at the end of the game, there was no chance. Evans had thundered across the pitch (measuring 2.7 on the Richter scale I’m told) leaving just henchman Raynor to shake hands. Danny (or Nicky, I can’t recall) approached with his hands out for a shake, but Raynor launched into a foul-mouthed tirade, pointing aggressively into the face of our official and screaming abuse. To what end? What was the point? He’d won the game, the curtain had come down on the Steve and Paul pantomime of hate, why carry it on? At this point, a proper manager would have shook hands, thanked us for the points and moved on. Is it the fact that this isn’t a pantomime, that Evans and Raynor are just thoroughly unpleasant and none of it is a show at all?

I hear even before the game there were issues with the meeting between managers and officials in the ground, but I can’t comment on the nature of those. I know that in the tunnel after the game they were still arguing something, swearing loudly and getting physical whilst kids and families were within earshot. There’s no need, the game had been played in a competitive but fair spirit, a couple of fouls went unpunished on both sides, but surely we were the aggrieved party if any. Even Jimmy Walker had a go on Twitter, saying “go to shake hands after we beat them and get told to f*ck off. Go to shake hands after we get beat- same result #wonthappenagain #classless #c*nt” Harsh words, but fair. Evans gets a lot of stick but you know what? Paul Raynor is just as bad. The pair of them are a stain on football.

So, we push on to the next game. Danny was disappointed later in the evening at our pre-arranged dinner date, perhaps not as disappointed as I was to discover I’d picked up a stomach bug and had to leave early. I think yesterday was just one of those games you hold your hands up and admit, we didn’t win it. Luton could have scored their golden chance to leave us defeated in that game, and we could have scored six against Morecambe on another day. Sometimes in football, your endeavour is not rewarded, and sometimes your lack of endeavour is. For us yesterday the former was true, for Mansfield the latter.

On yesterday’s showing, I’m afraid I can’t see the Stags finishing in the top three, because they offered far less than Luton, Stevenage or even Wycombe Wanderers. All that for a couple of million quid, well done Steve. Now get booked in at your doctors and get booked in for an ECG because I’m worried about you. Kind of.

THANKS TO GRAHAM BURRELL AND LINCOLN CITY FOR THE GOOD PHOTOS

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