Okay, 12 games unbeaten, 11 goals in two matches and more clean sheets than Dunelm Mill does make this one of the more obvious hottest takes on Lincoln City right now, but something good is happening at the LNER Stadium (Sincil Bank, obviously, but I know Liam would like me to use the official name, even if it is just once).
I’m looking beyond this great run, which has made people sit up and take note. I’m looking at what came before and what comes after. The signs were there for the former, and we chatted about how things were improving, even as we lost 2-0 to Blackpool. For the latter, I’m getting a little bit excited.
The last time I really felt like this with justification was the winter of 2016, when King Cowley and the heroes of the National League were in full effect, hitting their stride and taking no prisoners. You could tell something was happening; you could feel it around the stadium. However, it is on the field where the apparent changes happened that season, and it’s happening again.
There is an argument for the 2020/21 season being an indicator of change, but that wasn’t a legacy; that was a moment in time. That was the stars aligning with COVID and the wage cap, empty stadiums giving young players the chance to express themselves. It was a great season, but we weren’t there. It’s remiss to ignore what Michael Appleton and the team achieved that season, but it led to nothing – the next campaign was flat, a broken promise, like a marriage proposal thrown back in your face.
I can’t help but think this is different. Michael Skubala hasn’t tried to woo us with big promises; he’s come in feeling like a humble, unassuming man, but he’s delivered. At the start of February, when he was asked about the play-offs, he didn’t start making excuses, he didn’t begin to brag, he just said, ‘let’s see where we are’. At the time, I thought it sounded like a man who believed and wanted to let outcomes do the talking. It’s fair to say our last two results have said much more than words ever could.
I don’t know whether we’re going to make the top six or not. Two months ago, I thought we were more likely to narrowly escape relegation. One month ago, I thought we were on for it, and two weeks ago, I thought we’d blown it. I know nothing, but I deliver my lack of real knowlegde with an air of certainty. Michael Skubala knows an awful lot about football, and he delivers with unassuming dignity. Skubala is a silent assassin, a man seemingly rated so highly that UEFA sends him on special missions across the continent, a man rated so highly Leeds had no worries about putting him in the dugout, but a guy that if you met him at a party, you wouldn’t know if he was throwing the event, or was part of the waiting staff.
It’s only when you listen, properly listen, that you realise we have made the right decision in bringing him in. The Coaches’ Voice piece recently is a classic example. He might not be a former top-flight player or a huge personality on screen, but he is assured and certain of his methods. He knows football, not like me and you think we know football, but as a science. We know it as a game, a hobby perhaps, but for Michael Skubala, it is an actual science.
How has this manifested itself at the Bank? Sure, there are the results, which speak for themselves, and they stand up against any of the coaches we were linked with before our man came through the door. However, the evidence was there from the first game, and it’s slowly becoming more obvious and evident. Like a good television series, the big outcomes were hinted at in earlier episodes, but the facts were always there. You know Chris is a stats man, and he was breaking down numbers two or three matches in. The Skubala approach was seeping through, even as we were losing to Derby, Northampton and Bolton Wanderers.
The eye test, what you actually see, is also becoming more obvious. Sure, 11 goals in two games gets people looking closer, and we seem to be the name on everyone’s lips right now, but there’s so much more. Hands up if you’ve written off one of Danny Mandroiu, Ted Bishop, Paudie O’Connor or Jovon Makama at some point this season. 99% of readers, including me, will have a hand up for one of those players. Yet last night, they were all superb, and we all saw it. That’s not an accident.
After we lost to Burton, there were rumours of dressing room disquiet, players arguing with management, and players lacking fight and application. Last night, as we triggered another two-man press high up the field or as Jovon chased a man down 30 yards after one errant pass, that wasn’t the case. This team looks a million miles removed from the one that lost at home to Burton.
I’m waxing lyrical about Skubala, but this does go deeper. Cast your eye over the starting XI last night – how many of the players are here on loan? Joe Taylor and Alex Mitchell. Both are good players, but would we miss them if they were recalled tomorrow and all of our other players were fit? That’s no slur on them at all, the point I’m trying to make is we’ve built a squad here that has withstood some pretty severe injury circumstances and continues to do so.
Taylor and Mitchell are super players and a credit to their parent clubs, but we’re not reliant on them. We can enjoy them and reap the rewards of their talent, but (if) when they return in the summer, the existing squad won’t feel like it has taken a huge step backwards. That was part of the problem in 2020/21 – we lost Rogers, Johnson, and Alex Palmer. Tayo Edun and Jorge Grant moved on, and the squad felt like it had a huge reset. We won’t take that loan hit this summer, and if we do sell a player I’m confident it won’t feel like we’re back to square one.
I’m excited. It’s the first time I’ve felt this excited since Christmas 2020, after we hammered Northampton and Burton. It’s the first time I’ve felt this excited for the long term since 2016/17. There’s something serious happening at the club right now: an alignment of good people, good players and the right approach. I felt it, deep down, after first meeting Michael, but there’s always a nagging doubt, isn’t there? Does he lack experience? Will his methods work? Are the doom-mongers right, and there’s something rotten at the heart of the club?
I don’t think there is. I think from the top down; we have a good set of people who know their jobs. Everything works: recruitment, training, and infrastructure right through to the matchday experience. Sure, everyone has gripes, there are bumps in the road, but to me, it feels like everything moves in the right direction 90% of the time.
Earlier in a conversation, I remarked about our play-off opponents, those teams vying for a top-six spot with us. Okay, Stevenage are new, but do I think they’ll be there in two year’s time? No. Oxford will; they’re a proper, established League One club. Blackpool will; they’re a League One club that can bounce between divisions. The same goes for Peterborough; they were all our rivals in the 2021/22 season. We’re in that bracket now. We’re not quite going up and down yet, but we’re established at this level. We’re not one-season wonders; this campaign will complete our fifth in the division. When we came up from League Two, the level we’d spent nearly all of my life at, all we really wanted was to consolidate.
We’ve done that. We are a League One club, not one that comes up and goes down (like Carlisle, Northampton, Crewe, etc), but an established League One club. We’ve made the level I dreamed of in 2016/17, and far from it being our ceiling, I think we can genuinely look forward to the future with the current setup.
Something is happening at Sincil Bank. Something real.
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