It’s one of those football cliches that often gets rolled out in pubs and on social media, but rarely does it actually come true. When your team is playing well, or scraping wins, or showing fragments of promise, you often hear, ‘someone is going to get a thrashing one of these days’.
Last night, under the lights at Sincil Bank on a chilly evening, someone finally did get a thrashing. It’s not our first three-goal haul this season – Charlton, Blackpool, and Wycombe have all had three put past them, but there’s no doubt on another night, it could have been 5-0 against Shrewsbury. They were poor, but they were also depleted, so let’s not pretend we’ve beaten the best version of Shrewsbury Town. Still, we have beaten a side I feel will be at this level next season, a side that put three past Reading at the weekend and a side that we have played 15 times at the Bank since 2000, and only beaten twice. In that time, they’ve beaten us 5-1 and 4-0 here.
We didn’t just beat them; we swept them aside. Nobody could have complained if our 1-0 half time lead was 2-0 or 3-0. Nobody could have complained if Reeco Hackett had a brace or if we’d already had a penalty before Ted Bishop missed his. Our xG was 4.05, according to Wyscout, the highest for a game at Sincil Bank since Chelsea Under 21s in the EFL Trophy and the highest for a Football League game since our draw with Morecambe on the opening day of the 2017/18 season. What’s really sad is that the attendance was the lowest at the ground since we came back to the Football League. We rumbled through the game, looking like every single football fan believes their team should look, and came away with the right result, but fewer fans saw it than any other game of this era.
I sensed it was going to be a low crowd an hour before kick off, when the side streets were deserted. I can’t understand why people stayed away – four wins from five, unbeaten in eight going into the game, surely gave grounds for optimism. I guess being 24 hours away from payday didn’t help, but plenty did go to extraordinary lengths to see the game. Gav, who sits behind me, is working in Washington (Tyne and Wear) right now, and he drove back for the game and drove back after. He believes, and I wager a few more believe after last night’s showing.
There were no real surprises with the team – the player we expected to be injured missed out, meaning a pairing of McGrandles and Erhahon in midfield. Ben House was back in attack as we went to a 4-4-2 out of possession. It’s a loose 4-4-2, though, with Bishop popping up all over the place like the first snowdrops of spring.
Before the game, my hot take was this: they struggle to score, and we defend well. Indeed, only the league leaders have conceded fewer than us after last night. I leveraged that information to give the blindingly obvious assessment that our getting the first goal would kill the game. We needed to start like a 100m sprinter, fast and direct, and we could have the game wrapped up.
On five minutes, Shrewsbury had their only shot on goal, which accounted for the bulk of their 0.45 xG. It looked like they were here for the fight, but Jensen pulled off the save. On six minutes, the game was wrapped up. I’m sure nobody would have fully believed it at the time, but we came out all guns blazing, throwing (metaphorical) punches in all directions, windmilling if you will. It felt a little like Salop had such a good week, beating Reading and then seeing their rivals deducted points, that they were just the willing patsy to a rampant City.
The move that led to the goal was unique in that it was Lincoln City, scoring from a corner. I’m sure that’s a misconception that we’re generally bad at corners but a lovely deep ball got nodded back, and then three players had a stab before Ted kept his cool to slide the ball home. In one move, we’d put the game to bed; little did we know it. However, the goal only tells half the story – the corner came from harassing a woeful centre-half in Dunkley into hoofing the ball high into the night sky and out for a corner. Everything we did in those first 15 or 20 minutes was high tempo, and Shrewsbury didn’t just look rattled; they looked shell-shocked. Their passing was poor; their midfielders went back to defenders and then back to the keeper, who was about as good with his feet as I am. Luckily for Salop, he was handy with his hands (handy, hands? No?).
We had more chances in the first half. Bishop curled a delicious free-kick over the bar, but it must not be forgotten that for 20 minutes or so, the game just flattened out. Shrewsbury gained some composure (not a lot) – never threatening anything like a goal, but at least having some possession. However, a different type of possession impressed me – whatever it was that possessed Taylor, Sorensen, House, and Hackett. They ran every inch of the field, pressing and chasing. It meant our ball players, McGrandles, Bishop, and Erhahon, often found themselves picking up pieces and spring attacks.
I did note that Ryan Bowman, a striker I’ve always thought was a bit ropey, picked up a booking for a stray arm in Roughan’s face. I’ll be honest; I was pretty aggro about it at the time because it felt a bit like the one O’Connor was sent off for against Northampton. Of course, Bowman being the poor man’s Stockley (he replaced ‘Elbows’ at Exeter) perhaps clouded my judgment. He got a yellow, and watching back, there was no intent, so I perhaps overreacted. It did pretty much end Bowman’s game – he barely challenged for the ball after that, and Erhahon did his best to get under the striker’s skin. I didn’t see what happened immediately after kicking off the second half, but a Salop fan I follow said Erhahon had dived after a coming-together. Like the classic manager’s comment, I didn’t see it, and thanks to my Wyscout video quota being taken up, I can’t watch it back, either.
After a relatively calm 20 minutes or so, where I must confess Tom Bloxham caught my eye for them, giving Roughan a bit of a challenge on the flank, we got our noses back into the game. It was right on the cusp of half time when the usually dependable Jordan Shipley found himself running into trouble on the edge of his own area. Ben picked up the ball and got a bit of a bobble to wriggle free of the last defender but fired over. The whole move was typical of what we’d done well – hunting in packs and pressuring a side clearly lacking a bit of confidence due to their injuries, form, and the early goal. What that did mean is that the 6,500 or so home supporters went in at half time feeling like we dominated the first half, when in actual fact, we’d bossed the first 20 minutes and the last five, with the middle bit a good example of managing the game and staying out of trouble.
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