Lincoln City joint-boss Chris Cohen was in no mood to gloss over the 5-1 defeat against Grimsby Town at Blundell Park last night.
City looked all at sea against the Mariners, conceding three first-half goals to give us a mountain to climb. A decent start to the second saw us pull one back, before a mix-up saw the home side add a fourth, and then quickly a fifth to seal the win.
The game is a friendly, and there were no points on offer, but Chris did not try to paint over the performance with the ‘it’s only a friendly’ routine when he gave his post-match interview.
“I can’t stand there after a game saying that winning is important when we win, and saying it’s not important when we lose,” he said.
“We go into every game trying to win. We go into every game with a game plan that we hope to execute, and that wasn’t it today from all of us. That’s very much ourselves and staff included. That was not the plan that we had moving into the game, and the execution wasn’t great either.
“We’re glad that it’s pre-season because it’s not for points, but at the same time, like I said at the start, we’re in this business to win games of football, and that was nowhere near good enough from many of us today.”
While local pride was at stake in front of a 3,000+ crowd, these games should not be used as a barometer for the season ahead. Last summer, Grimsby beat us 2-1, and we ended up winning the division. They remained in League Two, so any optimism or early inference of struggle should be put to one side.
“We lost a couple of games, not one like that, but we lost a couple of games last year in pre-season, and they proved to be brilliant reflections for us,” added Chris.
“At this moment in time, that is a dressing room that’s hurting the same as they will be if we lose a league game. There’s a group of winners in there. We’re all used to winning games of football, especially over the last 12 months.
“When we don’t, it hurts, and it doesn’t matter if that’s a pre-season game against Grimsby or the first game of the season. Losing hurts, and that is something that we’ll address on Thursday, work as hard as we possibly can to put right, and move forward with the group.”
The game was a glorified training session, albeit one that went badly and of course, if we’d won, we’d crow about it, so we have to take the defeat as well. That said, nothing but a little pride was at stake, and as Chris explains, it’s a learning experience which they’ll digest and work on ahead of the season kicking off.
“We’ll dissect it. Me and Tom will go back and have a look at what we did, how we changed it, how we tweaked it and what we can do better next time.
“The players have already come and spoken to us to say they’ll do exactly the same.
“They’re a wonderful group, and one bad performance ain’t never going to change our opinion of that. They are a group of winners, a group of blokes that we love working with every single day and we love watching play every day.
“We just weren’t quite at it, and it shows you against a good team that, if you’re not quite at it, you get hurt, no matter the level.”
City have a chance to get more minutes in the legs this weekend, with two friendlies back to back. It’s expected that two different XIs will face Barnsley and Doncaster, with the current first team squad mixed with a handful of youth players. Midfield trialist Matt Smith is also expected to feature again after getting 45 minutes against Grimsby.
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