There is one statistic from Saturday that probably tells you more about the challenge Lincoln City pose in the Championship than any other.
According to Wyscout, Middlesbrough attempted 670 passes and completed 574 of them, while City attempted just 206 and completed 125, leaving the hosts with 70.28% possession and the Imps with 29.72%. Those figures would usually point towards a fairly comfortable afternoon for the team dominating the ball, but this was anything but that for Middlesbrough, who trailed for 50 minutes and needed a stoppage-time winner to finally see City off.
That is why the numbers need a little interpretation rather than simply being presented as evidence of dominance. Middlesbrough wanted control through possession, moving City around and waiting for spaces to appear, while the Imps were much more interested in territory, pressure and making their moments count. The game was therefore being played in two very different ways, and for much of the first half City’s approach was arguably the more effective of the two.
The possession figures were always going to favour Middlesbrough, but they do not tell you how comfortable the home side were when they had the ball. City pressed intelligently, particularly when play was shifted wide or backwards, and there were several occasions when Middlesbrough were hurried into mistakes or simply knocked the ball out of play. The hosts were seeing plenty of possession, but much of it was being played in areas where City were content for them to have it, and the Imps were doing a good job of preventing that possession from turning into genuine danger.
The opening goal after 12 minutes was a good example of what City were trying to do. George Wickens went long, Freddie Draper competed for the first ball, and Tendayi Darikwa eventually found space to pull a delivery back from the right. Ben House left it cleverly, and Adam Reach arrived to finish against his former club, giving City the lead and rewarding a start in which they had looked anything but overawed by the surroundings.
That goal was also a reminder that possession and attacking threat are not the same thing. City did not need a long passing sequence to create the opening, nor were they trying to play through Middlesbrough simply to prove they could do so at Championship level. The idea was much more direct than that: get the ball into useful areas quickly, compete for the first contact and then attack the spaces that appeared around the second ball.
The eventual shot count heavily favoured Middlesbrough, who had 23 attempts to City’s ten and put seven on target compared with City’s one. That looks emphatic in isolation, although City’s only effort on target ended up in the net and was enough to keep them ahead until the 62nd minute. It also says something about the type of chances Middlesbrough were being forced to take for long periods, because City were generally happy to protect central areas and allow efforts from positions that were less threatening.
The expected-goals numbers are harder to ignore, with Middlesbrough finishing on 3.86 xG compared with City’s 1.32. Over the full 98 minutes, that suggests the hosts ultimately created enough to deserve their victory, particularly once the pressure began to build after the interval. What it does not mean is that City spent the entire afternoon clinging on, because the first half was much more balanced in terms of territory and threat than the possession figures alone would suggest.
The second half was where the pattern really began to shift. City’s wing-backs started from deeper positions, the distances between the defensive unit and the attacking players became greater, and Middlesbrough were able to establish possession much closer to the Imps’ penalty area. Where City had been able to press from higher starting positions before the break, they were increasingly being asked to defend around their own box, and Middlesbrough were able to switch play from side to side in search of an opening.
That change is reflected in the passing figures. Middlesbrough completed 85.67% of their passes across the game, whereas City’s completion rate was 60.68%, but the two teams were attempting very different things with the ball. The hosts were making large numbers of shorter passes while probing around City’s shape, whereas the Imps were often trying to escape pressure quickly, play longer into the forwards or turn Middlesbrough around rather than circulate possession safely.
The duel statistics tell a much more positive story from City’s perspective. Of the 155 duels recorded, the Imps won 91, which works out at 58.71%, while Middlesbrough won 64. City also came out on top in the aerial contests, winning 27 of 43, and that reflects how competitive the performance was despite the huge possession disparity.
That physical side of the game was crucial because City could not afford to become passive without the ball. Ben House worked tirelessly, Conor McGrandles was strong in midfield and Deji Elerewe produced another assured display at the back, while Draper played an important role in making the direct approach work during the first half. Middlesbrough had the majority of the ball, but City were still winning more than their share of the individual battles required to keep the game competitive.
George Wickens was another important part of that defensive effort. Middlesbrough eventually put seven efforts on target, and he was called upon several times as the pressure increased, particularly after half-time. His distribution was also a useful weapon, with a number of longer passes giving City a way of bypassing the Middlesbrough press and getting quickly into attacking areas.
The equaliser after 62 minutes came during the period when the pressure was becoming much more sustained. City initially dealt with the delivery into the box, but the ball broke awkwardly back into a dangerous area and Will Lankshear reacted quickly to make it 1-1. It was unfortunate rather than catastrophic defending, but it was also the sort of situation that becomes more likely when one side is spending increasingly long periods around the opposition penalty area.
The decisive goal was different because it owed far more to individual quality. With the game deep into stoppage time, Lankshear turned Ivan Varfolomeev inside the area before finishing across Wickens to make it 2-1. After all the possession Middlesbrough had enjoyed and all the pressure they had applied, it still required a moment of real quality in the 94th minute to finally break City.
That perhaps provides the most useful context for the overall numbers. Middlesbrough finished with 70.28% possession, 670 passes, 23 shots, seven efforts on target and 3.86 xG, while City had 29.72%, 206 passes, ten attempts, one on target and 1.32 xG. Taken without context, those figures suggest a game controlled almost entirely by the home side, but the score was 1-0 to City for 50 minutes and 1-1 until stoppage time.
The numbers within those headline statistics explain why. City won 91 of the 155 duels, came out on top in 27 of the 43 aerial contests and caused Middlesbrough genuine problems with their press during the first half. They were not attempting to dominate possession, but they were competing in the areas that mattered and making the game uncomfortable for a side expected to be operating towards the upper end of the Championship.
There are areas that will concern the coaching staff, particularly how much deeper City became after half-time and how difficult it became to regain territory once Middlesbrough established themselves around the penalty area. The gap between the forwards and the rest of the side grew, the outlets became harder to find, and the pressure gradually increased. Against Championship opposition, those periods are going to be difficult to survive indefinitely, especially when the opposition have the quality to punish even relatively small openings.
Even so, this did not look like a side discovering that the Championship was beyond them. City went to the Riverside, took the lead, competed physically, defended with discipline and were seconds away from taking a point despite being heavily outnumbered in almost every possession-based statistic. The 29-match unbeaten league run is over, but the numbers from Middlesbrough offer as much encouragement as they do warning about the level City have stepped into.
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