Steve Evans – He’s Had Your Pants Down

He’s done it again, Lincoln’s favourite antagonist has put himself squarely in the sights of City fans which is where he wants to be.

Let me ask you this, when I say Gillingham to you, what is the first thing that comes into your head? I guarantee, for most at least, it is Steve Evans, living there rent-free since 2004. You forget Vadaine Oliver and John Akinde, and the names Kyle Dempsey, Jordan Graham and Conor Ogilvie pass you by. Do you know why? Because he wants you to forget about them. He wants it about him, he wants the press to be about his comments because it decreases the focus on his players.

How many other teams featuring ex-Imps get off so lightly? In the buildup to Northampton, the first game, it was all about Bolger. Eardley and Bostwick dominated the headlines before we beat Burton 5-1, and Jack Payne got mentioned a time or ten before both Swindon games. Here we are, facing two strikers who have ‘graced’ out turf, two strikers who did alright here and yet there’s barely a mention. Instead, it is all about the real-life inspiration for Peter Griffin, and that is the way he wants it. He might be a pantomime villain, but that is exactly how he wants it.

He wants you to get angry about the budget claims he’s making. Do you really think Steve Evans is stupid enough to believe we have a big budget and should be promoted? Ipswich, Hull, Peterborough, Sunderland, Portsmouth and Charlton are all well ahead of us, and I’d imagine Oxford and Blackpool have spent more too. I know it, you know it and I’m sure a wily manager like Evans knows it. Whatever you say, he is not a stupid man and by getting people all worked up on social media, he is achieving his goal. You’ll notice, I didn’t bite at all this week, because I would have been more shocked if he didn’t have a little stab at us on the sly.

Then there are the penalty claims, heaping pressure on Ross Joyce before we’ve even kicked off. Lincoln get more penalties than anyone, claims Evans. He’s right too, we’ve had 13 this season, almost twice as many as the next highest number of seven. Guess which team have had seven? Yup, Gillingham (and Doncaster), but he forgets to include that. Instead, they’re the victims of a biased system and diving players (I wonder what Ipswich, Northampton and Crewe feel having had just one each?). Poor old Gillingham, poor old Steve.

He also seems to want Ross Joyce to keep a sharp eye on our dirty, diving forwards, but perhaps if the official turns his attention to the other end of the field, it might be more appropriate: Vadaine Oliver, a modern-day John Fashanu, has committed more foul this season (87) than any other League One player. John Akinde is inside the top ten when you change the criteria to fouls per 90 minutes, only down in the total table due to his decreased game time.

I’m sorry, but you have to admire it, don’t you? In making bold claims and highlighting issues he wants to affect the game, Evans takes away from some other stats that are there for those eager enough to look. Like the stat that his Gillingham team have the highest expected goals against in the division (60.16), lost the ball more times than any team in the division (4392), faced more shots than any team in the division (459) and been forced to block more shots than any team in the division (141). Obviously, they have contested more aerial duels than any other side too, 2675 compared to the next highest, Northampton, on 2506. These are stats that any discerning Lincoln City fan should be retorting with, not insults (like comparing him to Peter Griffin I guess), but it’s Steve Evans, right? It’s not about football. What I have to confess is even with those stats, they are still within touching distance of the top six.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I don’t like Steve Evans, and I passionately dislike Paul Raynor. I wouldn’t want either at my club right now, but if we were fourth from bottom and needed to fight for every point, would I turn to him over Tilson, Sutton, Holdsworth and even Peter Jackson? Abso-bloody-lutely. Why? Because he is a good manager. He knows how to motivate, how to stifle, how to spoil and how to grind out a win. He knows how to get in your head and stay there, taking the pressure off his own players, who I hasten to add will not have come cheap. Do you think John Akinde took a huge pay cut to move there, from being one of our highest earners? No. Does Evans really have grounds to class them as the underdog, when Rochdale and Accrington are surviving on fresh air and goodwill? No. Do you realise that? No. In fact, fans are so busy arguing against the points he makes about our club, they lose sight of the ones he makes about his own.

Transfermrkt is not a site I ever use as a hard and fast guide to wages, squad values etc, but it is a resource that looks to be in the ballpark. This table shows us 14th in terms of squad value which I think reflects loosely on wages too, and it is my understanding, from a good inside source, that we have around the 14th highest budget in the division. Take the odd anomaly out of the table (Peterborough), it does look relatively close to an indicator, and Gillingham are right there in 17th. Their squad size is close to ours, and I’m guessing their budget comes within a couple of hundred grand, at worst, of ours. Still, who bothers looking at theirs, when they’re busy saying ours isn’t so high?

Whatever you think of Evans, don’t fall into the easy trap of brown envelopes, badly-packed parachutes and all that. He’s a manager who has always done whatever it takes to win and I think a bit of pre-match guff, a few untruths and some hype all goes towards taking pressure off his players, who desperately need a win tonight to cling onto the slim hope of a play-off place. We’re all sat arguing how we don’t need to win and the pressure isn’t on, not realising this is his most important game of the season, his chance to make a real claim on an unlikely and hard-fought top-six spot – a spot just as unlikely for us at the beginning of the season as it is for them now.

Steve Evans, I have a begrudging respect for you, but I’ve got to a stage now where I know to ignore pretty much everything you say pre-match, post-match and at any other point you are awake and your mouth opens. Fair play to you though, for keeping a straight face during nearly 20 years of bluffing, I’ve seen much worse actors making a living in Hollywood.