After yesterday’s excellent result for the Imps, starting 2023 off in fighting fashion, it seems almost crass to go back to the Bolton game, but finally Ian Evatt has responded to the three-match ban handed to Dapo Afolayan following our draw with the Trotters on Friday.
The Bolton man was caught on camera aiming a deliberate elbow at Lasse Sorensen in the run-up to their levelling goal; Mark Kennedy confessed after yesterday’s game that it was us who sent the video in after match referee Geoff Eltringham told us he couldn’t view it in the immediate aftermath of the game.
That resulted in a charge and three-match ban for the player, for something Mark claimed could result in jail time if you did it in the street. He’s right, in my opinion, but Ian Evatt believes it wasn’t something we needed to run and tell the teacher about.
“I was aware of it on the Saturday afternoon,” he told the Bolton News. “I don’t think anybody saw it apart from their manager (Mark Kennedy) and there is some frustration for me that he didn’t speak to me about it before, because I think managers should deal with that internally.
“But if we are opening up that can of worms, tit for tat kind of nature, then there will be a lot more red cards during the course of a football season. It is what it is. We will deal with it and move on.”
Evatt, who chose not to apply his own philosophy to his post match comments where he called Regan Poole out for a ‘leg breaking challenge’ is quickly becoming a new pantomime villain at Sincil Bank, and in the wider League One community. His comments, in which he appears to suggest assualt and an infringement before a goal should be dealt with internally, are alluding to deliberate elbows off the ball being commonplace in football.
Perhaps in Bolton Ian, but certainly not at Lincoln City, or in 95% of League One fixtures not involving your team.
City shared the spoils with the Trotters in a 1-1 draw after taking the lead through a smart Ben House free kick. The elbow occured in the run up to their leveller, whilst Joe Walsh was dimissed not long after to leave us hanging on with ten men,.
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