One of the things I either love or hate in my job writing about Lincoln City is reliving the game on a Sunday morning.
Many nights I have lain in bed on a Saturday worrying about having to write up the game, reliving nightmare moments, trying to understand what went wrong, how and if it meant warning signs or not. Under a couple of recent managers I’d convince myself a draw was always better than a loss, or the season before meant we were on the right track.
This season, I haven’t had to worry about that in more than three months. This season, I get out of bed early, watch the highlights on 65″ high definition instead of my laptop, and study the extended highlights, not just the little two-minute clips. I then come here and write, Wyscout ready to provide me more context. Right now, I bloody love my job, and I suspect Lincoln City staff do as well.
We’re working with a premium product. In any line of work, the better the product, the more enjoyable the job, I am sure. It’s easier to sell a quality product and Lincoln City are a quality product. It’s not by accident, it’s by blood, sweat, tears and hard work, but it’s a joy to watch, and a thrill to relive the day after. Hell, I even find myself watching highlights two or three days later, for fun. For fun, no less.
Yesterday’s game against Blackpool was not as easy as the scoreline shows, but it was not as close as your edgy mate who likes to play Lincoln down suggests. In my one-minute review on YouTube, I said perhaps 2-0 would have been a fair scoreline, but that’s not entirely accurate, on reflection.
I quite liked Blackpool, at first. Tom Bloxham caught my eye a few years back at Morecambe, and Josh Bowler looked every inch the ‘maverick’ he was labelled as by Ian Evatt in midweek. Up top, like a lot of sides, they flattered to deceive and I do wonder if maybe the reason we haven’t seen many decent strikers play against the Imps this season is down to our defence, rather than their attack. Ashley Fletcher has 13 League One goals this season, but aside from one second half header, he didn’t get a sniff.
We spread our goals out quite evenly, but Ben House could have had three before we got one. The xG for the game was 3.57 to 0.48, and 2.59 of ours came in the first half, just over 1.1 to Ben House before we scored. I thought we looked good up top, without forcing their keeper to make many saves. He did make one from House after Moylan made Jordan Brown look foolish by getting away in the middle of the park.
Moylan, by the way, was excellent again. Losing him just after half time was a blow, and while it didn’t affect the result, it did rob us of a little creativity. He just looks unplayable at the moment and I hope the injury doesn’t rule him out for too long.
Before the goal, a word on how well we defended in the first half. We restricted them to almost nothing, and they have good players. I say it most weeks, but the likes of Bloxham, Fletcher and Bowler should be top end League One, not scrapping for survival. In patches, you could see they were decent, but with it being a theme, other sides not looking good against us, you have to acknowledge the common denominator, and that is us. The only time we wobbled was for a Bloxham shot, Wickens made a good save and we couldn’t clear our lines, but we packed the box, blocked the frame and fought on. It’s such a contrast to Barnsley away last season, where everything they put at goal went in.
We did score, well deserved, and I noted something really interesting in the build up. We won that corner. It wasn’t given away, Reeco played for it, deliberately, by playing the ball off the defender. That won’t get noted – Bradley’s involvement and Street hitting the bar might, but Hackett’s clever creation of a set piece won’t, until now. Anyway, we did what we do, back stick, nodded back, and the rest is left to the pack in the middle. Street hits the bar, McGrandles nods home, and had Ashworth’s foot been six inches higher, he’d have probably been sent off for dangerous play.
Or would he? We’ll deal with the referee shortly.
We’ll start now – right before half time Moylan was lunged at by Bloxham, then fouled by Fletcher, and the referee gave nothing, before Bloxham, on a booking, lunged into House and should have been booked. Bobby Madley, a replacement for Thomas Parsons who we were scheduled to have, let play go on, but it wasn’t the right decision at all. After the game, we even suggested he forgot about booking Bloxham as he waved play on, and that is surely a more solid explanation than not booking him for his lunge on House.
Actually, on reflection, I also wondered how Honeyman didn’t get booked. Madley kept calling the captains in, especially for pushing in the area. He got them together in the centre of the park at half time and at one point, unprovoked by actions, Honeyman raises his arms and pushes Darikwa. It’s literally right in front of the referee, as he’s talking to them, not jostling for position, literally just out of petulance. How is that not a booking?
The Darikwa and Honeyman thing went on in the second half as well, Honeyman striking me as a bit of a Joey Barton figure. That’s a shame, because I liked him on Sunderland ‘Til I Die a few years back, but he got really riled and was lucky to stay on. Had he been on a booking when he launched into the assistant, he might have walked as well.
I didn’t think I’d noticed much of Bobby Madley in the first half, but he took centre stage in the second.
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