Gary Caldwell felt Sincil Bank was a tough place to get a result yesterday, but after mugging us late on, a result is what Exeter City got.
Despite being arguably the weakest side to come to the Bank this season, they were robust enough to repel us, and ended up grabbing a 94th-minute winner, against the run of play. It was perhaps the most ‘Lincoln’ result of the season, coming off the back of a great week only to disappoint in front of a big home crowd of 8,800 supporters.
However, it was always likely to be tricky against an Exeter side used to fighting, and that’s exactly how Michael Skubala saw it when talking to John Helm on Imps+ after the game.
“This was always going to be a tricky game,” said our Head Coach. “These are the tricky ones for us. The weather added to that as well, but we knew they would come and stiffen it up, try to stifle the game and slow it down, and play for a moment.
“We had enough chances to win that game. We should win that game. We’d have been frustrated at drawing it, but we shouldn’t concede that goal. We can’t concede that goal. We should come off the pitch frustrated at a 0–0. It’s a soft one to take, but I think we had enough chances to win the game.”
Despite the frustration of being unable to convert four or five good chances, the big home support stayed strong. With 9,053 in the ground and just over 200 visiting supporters, there was a big home crowd who backed the side to the end.
“The crowd have been magnificent, and they were again today. You could feel that the team wanted to win the game. We were the ones on the ascendancy, trying to win it. We were the ones trying to score the goal, but we just weren’t clinical enough in front of goal.
“I think there were 50-odd touches in the box — if you have that many, you should win the game. In the end, our final calmness in front of goal, that little bit of quality, was missing. At times we took two touches when we should take one, maybe trying to be too cautious with the finish when we didn’t need to be. We just didn’t do enough to win it in the final third.”
Conor McGrandles missed out after a late injury concern, which some supporters have suggested contributed to defeat. However, his replacement, club-record signing Ivan Varfolomeev, was the sponsors’ Man of the Match, and Michael didn’t feel the change affected the outcome.
“I don’t think that was an issue. The middle of the pitch — the two boys, Bayliss and Ivan — did well. The defensive line too. You can look across the team and say we had good performances, but again, we shouldn’t come off losing that game.
“We should come off at least frustrated about a 0–0, but honestly, we should win it with the chances we had. We had big moments to win and we just needed to put the ball in the net, which is frustrating.”
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