Virtue was replaced by Max Sanders, and at half time Danny Mandroiu came off for Tom Hopper, with us seemingly going to a 4-3-2 with Diamond and Hopper up top. Ben House, excellent in the first half, dropped into midfield, where he continued to be excellent. He’s been a revelation this season, but he wasn’t the only one today. Roughan was outstanding, the whole back four (after the red card) were solid and, perhaps most importantly, the midfield were fully functional despite being drastically changed throughout the game. Still, I felt we’d need to be for a big 45 minutes.
Ipswich came out looking hungry, and I recall after one of their chances I glanced at the clock – 37 minutes left. Matt chuckled and said it was a bit early to be clockwatching, but it felt like I’d be doing it throughout the half. Instead, time began to go quite quickly, not least when we took the lead. Much like the game at Portman Road, it came completely against the run of play, and as you’ll see from the graphic at the bottom of the page, it really was our only attack of the second half. It came from a very good bit of officiating, which it is only fair to give credit for.
From a corner, Kane Vincent-Young manhandled Paudie O’Connor, and the ref stopped play and spoke with the player. Usually, the next action is the corner being taken and a whistle going for a free kick against us; it had happened that way in the first half, and on Friday. It meant I purposely watched the tussle, not the corner being taken or anything, just the tussle. There’s no argument (although their manager thinks it’s a crazy penalty), it was a foul. Their player wrestles O’Connor to the ground, after being warned about it. In my opinion, it was refreshing to see an official make that call correctly – it happens a lot, so kudos not only for seeing it but taking a stand as well. I’m sure some Ipswich supporters might think he was evening it up after the red card, but it wasn’t that. In fact, respect to those Blues supporters on social media calling out their gaffer for saying it wasn’t a penalty.
Up stepped Jack Diamond, and there’s no player you want to be shooting from 12 yards more than him. 1-0 City, an unlikely lead given the circumstances.
Now, defending against Ipswich Town is a big challenge – I’ve said they’re a super side and perhaps bar and out-and-out striker, they’re as good as you’ll see in League One. Defending that lead with ten men is nigh-on impossible, and the rest of the match was us digging in and fighting as if our lives depended on it. It’s odd; a game utterly dominated by the opposition brings as much enjoyment for some fans as one like Charlton, where we get a point, and nothing happens. I feel there is a siege mentality, a togetherness that fighting adversity brings. It’s why we find it so easy to call out the ref when things don’t go our way, as collective anger at a fall guy is easier to manage than accepting that perhaps you should be down to ten men. I even remarked to Matt that at least with a red card, if we lost the game, the pressure wouldn’t really be on the team. It’s a pessimist mindset, sure, but it’s true.
Not that it looked like we were down to ten. I thought Ipswich had a reluctance to commit too much forward; often, Tom Hopper was up top with two or three blue shirts around him. Were they worried we might hit on the break and get a second? Possibly, Diamond was a constant menace and whilst Hopper doesn’t have the pace to break, he still made them think about their defence. Mind you, they didn’t need to as we offered nothing going forward, as you’d expect. There wasn’t a single moment when I felt we’d add a second before their goal; you just hoped we could soak up some of the pressure and get to full time.
There was a moment in the second half where it felt like the wolf trying to blow down the three little pig’s house. Ipswich huffed and puffed, they threw balls into the box, they worked little spaces on the edge of the area, but the door just wouldn’t give. Carl Rushworth pulled off two or three good saves, but he perhaps wasn’t worked quite as hard as their manager might have liked. He wasn’t huffing and puffing on the touchline; he was getting the blue-shirted wolves to try throwing the kitchen sink through the window and breaking in that way. Wave after wave of changes saw more attacking players brought on, desperate to break in somehow and gobble up the ten little piggies that constituted the Lincoln City rearguard.
They managed it, but not before a Herculean effort to ensure they didn’t. The clockwatching from me had more or less stopped, as we wove towards full time I briefly thought we might just keep them at bay. However, one ball and one substitute managed to get in behind and beat Rushworth to make it 1-1 with a good header. The travelling support sparked back into life (our penalty had silenced them for a short spell), and then it really was backs to the wall. I felt at half time, if they got one, they might get three or four – could they find a way through? Would the one open the floodgate?
No, but they certainly tried. One ball into the box seemed to evade Rushworth but somehow stay out. On either flank, they teased, twisted and turned, but couldn’t get past the Imps players. Normal time ebbed away, and nine minutes of injury time went up, a response to timewasting, I believe, not that it had been rampant. When one of our fans threw the ball upfield instead of giving it to a player, Bourne held his watch up high, showing he was holding the seconds back.
Deep into injury time, we did get a corner, and for a fleeting second, I thought we might snatch it. We’d done nothing positive in terms of attack since the goal, but we had been excellent without the ball. The press had been better in the first half (House seems more energetic than Hopper), but we had still defended from the front. I’ve got to mention Lasse, who had so much energy and proved me wrong when I first saw the teamsheet (‘not Lasse in a two ‘were my exact words). It would be wrong to go on about any single individual – we were the perfect ten (men), doing exactly what we had to do to take a point. We didn’t score from the late corner, but it did keep the ball away from our goal for a few seconds.
After exactly nine minutes of injury time (our ball-throwing friend did eat a few seconds – I timed it), the man in the middle blew his whistle to give us an unbeaten home start to 2023, carrying on where we left off from 2022. It was a battling point against the best side in the division, one that stretched us all over the field and tested every bit of resolve the players had. I didn’t hear a single moan after leaving the ground and walking back to the car, although I did get a couple of people complaining to me in my DMs later in the day which, with respect, I haven’t replied to. I looked at the last two matches and claimed two points would be huge – if you’d told me we’d play 90 minutes of those games with fewer men than the opposition, I might even have claimed that a single point would have been a big result. Two? Talk about late Christmas presents.
Christmas has brought two points from nine, and yet I’m not despondent about it, even with the Burton debacle fresh in our minds. We’re a decent side, we have some talented players, but we have a spirit about us I really like. I have to say, Paudie O’Connor typifies it for me – he’s been one of the summer’s best signings; perhaps him and Virtue are the two I see as having had the most impact on a collective basis. O’Connor is a warrior, a defender who puts his head in, his feet in and never limps off or calls in sick for the next game. He has had to marshall a young defence twice after a senior player gets sent off, and on both occasions, he has done so magnificently. Of course, Regan Poole is a player with a future above this level, Sean Roughan is as well, and the last two games have let supporters get an in-person glimpse of the TJ Eyoma that played 2020/21 behind closed doors. I hope that’s TJ back on track now because on his day, he’s as good as any player in this side – remember, when Poole signed, people moaned because we had TJ at right back and didn’t need another. That’s how good he can be.
We now turn our attention to January, where I can see a route through to a more comfortable Spring. We need to beat a couple of the teams we come up against, Burton, Cambridge and MK Dons are matches you’d hope we could take six or seven points from. That would be the sort of haul that makes the run-in feel much more comfortable and properly reflect the resilience this team has.
After the game, Mark Kennedy gave one of his best interviews ever, where he was candid about officiating without being rude, where he was respectful of the opposition and showed he has decency and honesty in his appraisals without rose-tinted glasses. A relationship with a manager (sorry, head coach) builds over time, and I think Mark is building the sort of rapport that will last longer than the four-year deal he currently has with the club. It’s not lip service either, and for him to be so concise with his analysis under some tough questioning, and give such a warm tribute to Marcus, is a measure of the man we have in charge.
Today was a big challenge, and it’s a super point. Our little story with Ipswich, which started in 2017, is probably at an end – I’m almost certain they’ll be promoted, and I can’t see us being thrown together again unless the cups give us another visit there. It’s been emotional, with highs and lows, but we (perhaps) finish our story with them as we started. In 2017 and 2022/23, we were the underdog, unfancied, and yet got a draw and a win from two matches, giving fans something to remember. However, unlike 2016/17, these two results are only good if we can follow them up with a solid 2023, fulfilling the potential that three of the last four games have underlined we have.
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