In Defence Of: Mark Kennedy

Welcome to the Stacey West article you never expected to read, my defence of Mark Kennedy.

Mark Kennedy’s reign is not one I look back on favourably, but something struck me the other day. I do not like one-way thinking. I do not like people who come from a single point of view and cannot debate or have their minds changed. When there is evidence for something, I respect people who will change their stance.

Often, I find myself being critical of 2022/23 and the first part of 2023/24, but I realised that some of that was me having an agenda. I see agenda-driven rubbish on social media all the time about Lincoln City, about Skubala, even still about the Cowleys, and it really twists my melon, and yet there I was, doing exactly the same about Mark Kennedy.

With very little news coming out of the club, I figured it might be time for me to try to think differently about Mark Kennedy’s time at the club. Instead of my one-way thinking, can I switch it up and come up with five reasons why Kennedy’s reign was not as bad as I make out? Can I basically argue with myself for 1,000 or so words? I set Charlie this task for our live show, and luckily, we didn’t need it as a topic as we talked about promotion, but it has lingered in my mind since then.

I’ve done it a few times, with Steve Tilson and Elliot Parish, and I intended to do it for David Holdsworth as well. The difference with Holdsworth is that I never really disliked him, and I feel his reign is overlooked as being as good as it could be under testing circumstances. With Mark Kennedy, I’ve been a vocal critic, but here is why I’d argue I was wrong.

Cup Runs

The first line of defence has to be those cup runs. The League Cup was our friend, and the win at Bristol City, plus the heroics at Southampton, really underlined what Kennedy’s Lincoln were all about. They battened down the hatches, weathered storms, and just didn’t concede goals. We were an early version of Skubala’s side and showed real resilience, albeit in the cups.

It even goes back to Jordon Garrick’s late leveller against Barrow early doors. There was a spirit in the team, at times, a certain ‘Lincolnness’ that has since evolved and developed. When we were up against it, like we were at Ashton Gate (on paper), we could turn in a good performance. Against Southampton, we deserved a win and were hugely unlucky with a couple of pretty poor decisions.

We did the same the following season against West Ham and Sheffield United. The defeat against the Hammers was still voted by you as the best display since our ratings began. That night we went toe-to-toe with a Premier League side, and while I’d argue we did better against a better Chelsea outfit, the numbers don’t lie.

That didn’t always flip over to League One action, but those cup runs did bring us a lot of cheer (let’s forget Chippenham).

Mike Garrity Departure

Is it possible that Mike Garrity’s departure played a role in that season? He left in December 2022, a month we entered ninth in the table, with 1.44 points per game. From December onwards, we got just 1.28 points per game. Was it a factor?

There is a nuance to this: Garrity left on December 12th, so we’d also lost to Shrewsbury 2-0 and drawn 0-0 with Wycombe after the month started, so actually the PPG is slightly skewed, but if he was off interviewing etc, maybe that was a factor. Maybe.

I look at Peter Jackson and Neil McDonald, and the perception is that we were better when they were a duo. Under Kennedy and Garrity, we barely started that awful run where we failed to get a league win between November 19th and February 4th.

I’m not calling out Danny Butterfield here; I never had an issue with him, but we did drop off a cliff after Garrity left, and only began to pull it around at the beginning of April. Here’s the fact: before Garrity left, we had two league defeats in ten matches. After December 12th, we won just two of 12.

Defensive Stability

That defensive stability has to be mentioned properly, because in the league, we were pretty solid. I recall under Appleton in the second season, Gav, who I sit with, said he was sick of seeing Lincoln lose. A year later, he was sick of seeing us draw, which is progress! We weren’t spectacular going forward, but rarely did we look troubled against much better opposition.

We had a ten-match unbeaten run (with more draws than Michael Skubala’s 29-match unbeaten run), holding the likes of Derby and Portsmouth. It worked in the cup, and eventually, it began to work in the league. Games were dour, there is no doubt of that, but we were hard to beat, and that is the first building block for success. Only when Michael Skubala plugged that awful defence that saw us concede four at Barnsley did we begin to look like the champions we are.

Transfer Policy

When he went to Swindon, Kennedy lashed out, saying we only wanted to bring in young players, and he needed some experience. It’s since been proven that experience does help, and the likes of Tendayi Darikwa and Sonny Bradley have been instrumental in turning us into a real force.

2022/23 was transitional as well. Kennedy lost Anthony Scully, Liam Bridcutt, Conor McGrandles, Cohen Bramall and Jamie Robson over the summer, and we got Charles Vernam, Jay Benn, Danny Mandroiu and Jacob Davenport. While Mandroiu did go on to be decent for us, his first season was injury-hit, and only Paudie O’Connor arrived who had real long-term impact.

Then there is the loan market. We’ve steered away from it now, but in the seasons before, we had Brennan Johnson, Morgan Rogers, Morgan Whittaker, Lewis Fiorini, and Brooke Norton-Cuffy, to name a few. Our model at the time relied on those players, and who did we get in 2022/23? Tashan Oakley-Boothe, Jordon Garrick, Jack Diamond and Matty Virtue. Virtue was decent, but missed a couple of months, and Diamond had a lot on his mind, meaning we never saw the best of him.

Even when we went in for January reinforcements, the same month of the season we previously got Rogers, Norton-Cuffy, and the like, Kennedy’s A-star player was Luke Plange.

I could argue that it was a Kennedy-driven decision to send Freddie Draper out on loan, to Drogheda and Walsall, but that is hearsay as much as anything. My understanding is that Draper was ‘at the scene of the crime’ when we lost to Chippenham, and didn’t get another chance to impress. If he had, maybe things would have been a little different. Maybe.

There were transfer hits under Kennedy: O’Connor, Ethan Erhahon and Reeco Hackett, Lukas Jensen and Ethan Hamilton the season after, but it’s fair to say our recruitment under Michael Skubala has had far more hits than misses, and perhaps Kennedy was a little out of luck.

Injury Horror

It’s easy to say Kennedy was unlucky with injuries, but he probably was. Jack Diamond and Matty Virtue both had spells out, and in his second season, there was the famous lack of strikers, with Tyler Walker and Ben House both picking up injuries, and Jack Vale arriving injured.

In 2022/23, only four players started 30 league games or more: Carl Rushworth (42), Paudie O’Connor (44), Regan Poole (45) and Ben House (35). We started the season with Chris Maguire playing a role when everyone knew he wasn’t in the manager’s plans, while Lewis Montsma’s big return lasted just eight matches. It was a rough time for the club in terms of availability, something we didn’t see this season. For the record, this season, we had seven players start 30 or more matches.

2023/24 was even worse with the striker injuries. Adam Jackson and Teddy Bishop missed games in the early part of the campaign, before Kennedy went, and we were starting with Hakeeb Adelakun up top, and a young Jovon Makama thrust into the limelight. In the last Mark Kennedy fixture at the Bank, we didn’t have a recognised striker on the field: Hackett started as a lone striker, and we finished with Duffy and Adelakun up top in a two.

Conclusion

The point of this was to try to correct my one-way thinking. Very few managers are all bad, just like no manager is all good. There are aspects of Mark Kennedy’s reign I can’t get past: the anecdotal evidence of a lack of communication and teamwork behind the scenes, and what I perceived to be a disingenuous manner when dealing with me. The football could have been better; we persevered with a system that just didn’t work, and rarely did we get value for money in league matches. Watching a Mark Kennedy side was a slog at times, and while some of his post-match stuff was honest and has turned out to be accurate, I felt he was about self-preservation, not team building.

Hopefully, I have also demonstrated that there were elements to his reign that were good, and reasons perhaps things didn’t always go as planned. I’ve softened my view a little, but as a pundit, I need to be able to be analytical, rather than simply criticise, so that is what I have tried to do.