Former Imp Impresses In Top Flight Title Hunt

July 22, 2024 Gary Lincoln City, Past Players 0

Credit Graham Burrell

If you’re one of those ‘who cares’ people who like to pop up when I write about former Imps, just click off this now.

I get a little tired of the same people and comments. It’s like the James Corden Ricky Gervais joke about guitar lessons,Β  this might not be for you.

However, I do keep an eye on former Imps, and I’m a little surprised at home one who flopped so badly with us has gone abroad and is absolutely smashing it. I’m talking about nobody’s favourite player, Luke Plange.

I remember a conversation with a club insider around the time we were hoping to sign Plange. We had a list of three or four strikers, two of whom were made known to me. One of those has since played more than 30 times in the Championship and represented his country, the other made around 20 Championship appearances for a loan club. Both have scored goals.

Credit Graham Burrell

I add that for context because I was told Plange was our first choice. If you recall, this was the window where we gambled by letting Tom Hopper leave before we brought someone in, hoping that by allowing the captain to go, it demonstrated to a young player that we wanted them. With that in mind, I was perhaps a little more excited than most when he arrived.

What goes up, must come down, and I fell harder than anyone when he turned out to be poor. I don’t think he’s a bad player, but in 640 minutes of Imps’ action, he had just eight shots and one on target. That’s it – a single shot on target in 18 outings. He didn’t exactly leave with a ringing endorsement, but then the year before, people moaned about Whittaker and Cullen, so he was already on a hiding to nothing.

Imps v Carlisle – Credit Graham Burrell

Of course, last season, he was back at the Bank, scoring as we drew with Carlisle. In 1095 minutes of League One action for the relegated Cumbrians, he had seven shots on target and scored twice. I figured his next stop was probably going to be League Two. Instead, it was the Champions League.

Yep, Plange is playing Champions League football and turning out for HJK Helsinki in Finland. I like to watch players who have passed through the Bank, and this season, Plange is doing really well.

He’s played more football than he did in the previous two campaigns, 1153 minutes. The Veikkausliiga starts in April, but he already has 19 games under his belt, many of those starts. He took a while to get going – two assists in his first three games looked promising, but he had a single goal and two assists after nine.

His last ten games have been impressiveβ€”he’s bagged five more goals, including a hat trick, as his side beat SJK 4-1 (for context, HJK are second, SJK third). He also scored against the leaders KuPS as his side ran out 3-1 winners. His shooting has been much more accurate – he’s managed 35 shots at an impressive 48.6% accuracy and has even outscored his xG, 5.33, to his six goals.

There are five games left of the regular season, then the division splits, with the top five teams playing each other once to determine who wins the title. The top three are all on 31 points, meaning HJK could be relying on Plange’s goals to help fire them back into Europe.

I’m not going to ask if he’s ‘the one that got away’ because I would have driven him away at my own expense in the end, but I just thought people might find it interesting to see how he was getting on. For reference, it’s a lot better than Tashan Oakley-Boothe, who has played just 64 minutes since moving to Portugal in January.