They say it’s the hope that kills you (I even said it at the start of this piece), but it isn’t. It isn’t belief or anything else profound. Pure and simple, the only thing that kills you in a game of football is the opposition scoring, and Carlisle came out all guns blazing, looking to kill us. Right now, they’re League One’s worst team in terms of points, wins, defeats, and goals conceded, but for a good 35 minutes of the second half, they gave us a huge scare.
I’m sure Paul Simpson finds it frustrating to watch a team of capable players fail miserably. I’ve mentioned Butterworth, but Mellish and Neal also impressed me, and whilst Luke Armstrong didn’t score, he also had an air of menace. Whatever they had in their half-time tea certainly gave them a real impetus, and they should perhaps have levelled in the first five minutes of the restart. Mellish had a header saved by Wright, which perhaps he could have done a bit better with before Butterfield hit the base of the post. Brunton Park felt like it was coming alive, and Barnsley pulling two back to take the lead against Burton would have fed into that positivity.
That’s if we didn’t break upfield and add a second completely against the run of play.
That’s the thing with this Lincoln City, Skubala’s super Imps. We might be under the cosh for a while; we might soak up pressure and scrap for possession, but if you give us just an inch, we’ll snatch a mile. As Carlisle pressed, seeking to delay the inevitable return to the basement division for a week or two more, we seized on the chance. It was their corner, delivered into the box, which set us off. Sam Lavelle couldn’t get a shot away, and the ball fell to two of their players, who collided. That allowed House to break clear, and he fed an Adam Marriott-esque pass behind a defender for Joe Taylor to run onto. He did what he does best; finished to give the Imps a 2-0 lead, and a margin that turned out to be enough to win the game.
Still, Carlisle weren’t done. Butterworth (I’ve been writing his name a lot recently; I hope Jez and the recruitment boys are reading this) lashed a vicious volley at Wright, who did well to make the save to stop the deficit from being reduced. The goal might have knocked Carlisle off their stride, but we still couldn’t take control of the play. We took the sting out of them with the breakaway second, but after that, it really was one-way traffic for a period. Wright had an excellent game, to the point where I forgot we had our ‘reserve’ keeper in. He made the saves he needed to, came for crosses, and didn’t make me fear that we were weakened in the sticks at any point.
Something odd then happened; I got a bout of nerves. Chris was cooler than an ice cube in Iceland, but in one of our group chats, Charlie admitted to being nervous at 2-0, and I was as well. Oxford were resounding in their performance against Fleetwood, but I felt Carlisle had something in them. Whilst Cool Cat Chris sat back, I agreed with Charlie and began to worry. I always scoff when someone says 2-0 is a dangerous score (1-0 is, obviously, far more dangerous), but there’s momentum to be considered. Northampton proved this back in August, coming back from 2-0 down when we weren’t quite at it, and there were shades of that game here. For much of the second period, I didn’t feel like Carlisle were a side likely facing Harrogate and Salford next season – I’ve seen far worse this campaign on the second-half showing.
I wondered if Jack Diamond might have a part to play, and he did. His run resulted in Mellish getting the ball for a deep cross, which former Preston man Sean Maguire nodded across goal for Mellish to lash home. Seeing Lincoln City concede shocked me; I had forgotten recently that teams are actually able to score against us, and immediately, I felt that wave of nervous energy wash over me once again. Surely, we could hold on? Surely, we have the minerals to keep one foot in the play-off door.
In an odd game, another strange thing happened after their goal. We perked up. I don’t think we’d sat back at all, but their goal more or less ended their attacking threat. Maybe it was a little shot in the arm; maybe it gave us a chance to refocus. Perhaps the introduction of TJ and Adam Jackson added a little solidity; I don’t know. Whatever it was, the final ten minutes didn’t provide the sort of shocks and twists that I feared. I had this image of the game turning into an Easter Monday horror story, but instead, we got the happy ending you’d expect from a family-friendly film shown in the middle of the afternoon.
We could have made it 3-1 from a Lasse free kick, won by Makama, who had another impressive cameo. Lasse’s delivery was touched onto the post by Paudie, who also had another good outing. As we meandered towards injury time, I suggested perhaps four minutes – aside from attention to Jordan Wright, there hadn’t been any significant stoppages. Still, Seb was enjoying himself in the middle, and he found eight minutes. Perhaps the memo about quietly shelving the extensive injury time hadn’t hit his desk, but it immediately made me fearful again.
However, Easter salvation came from the boot of Ted Bishop, without a doubt my Man of the Match (just ahead of Ethan Erhahon, with his unusual choice of hair colour). Josh Emmanuel, who featured for Ipswich in those famous FA Cup matches, brought down Ted as he advanced on goal, resulting in a free kick. Ted, who was at Ipswich but missed both the FA Cup games, looked like he fancied it, as did Jack Moylan. It was Super Ted who stepped up, and expertly struck his 15th goal in City colours.
That really doesn’t do it justice, does it? Carlisle left three men up, making the box look a little short of bodies, but that didn’t matter. You will not see a better free kick from a City player this season as our talismanic number ten curled a deluxe dead ball around the wall and out of reach of the Carlisle keeper. Game, set and match Lincoln City.
Were we at our best? Not entirely, no. However, just like Friday, we did what was needed. Carlisle didn’t nullify us in the same way Orient did, and I felt in the first half, it was clear which side were bottom and which were sixth. That changed in the second half, but the second goal really fed into something I think I said on the podcast. They had to come at us; a draw was no good for them, and it meant we could hit them on the break. That’s exactly what we did during a moment where they were having a lot of good play and maybe had us on the ropes a bit. Once we got the second, it was always an uphill struggle.
We now have four days off to recover from a six-point weekend and prepare for a Reading side that is as predictable as the lottery numbers. They’ve won four and lost five of the last nine matches, going from the sublime (4-0 v Cambridge) to the sloppy (2-5 against Bolton). Luckily, I won’t be able to get nervous, as it’s my mate’s stag weekend (I’m best man; otherwise, I’d be seriously considering not attending the wedding of a man who arranges his stag weekend during the football season and doesn’t make sure it’s in Reading). That might mean a little respite from what is becoming something of a thrilling end to a season that threatened so little in Autumn.
We learned nothing today. We already knew that clubs at the bottom fight at the end, that Dan Butterworth is quality, that we’re cursed when it comes to injuries, and that we can score goals in abundance. There’s no ‘five things we learned’ article to be had from today’s game because all we got was confirmation.
Confirmation that Lincoln City under Michael Skubala are the real deal.
Confirmation that we’re serious about a play-off push.
Confirmation that we’re taking this play-off push right to the wire.
Up the Imps.
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