Lincoln City head coach Chris Cohen believes that Riley McGree’s run to create the winning goal for Middlesbrough could be stopped.
The Imps looked on course for a fine point at the Riverside, before the Australian international beat Ivan Varfolomeev on the byline, and squared for Will Lankshear to secore all three for the home side.
It was a moment of quality from McGree, but up until that point, the Imps had been worth a point.
“Amazing performance,” Chris said in the post-match press conference.
“The heart, the passion the boys played with. We’ve just got to really quickly learn the lesson that the first half was exactly what we want it to look like. We had them where we wanted to have them, and we were a constant threat on their goal when we had possession.
“In the second half, we just dropped a little bit too deep and lost our punch back. When you do that against really good teams with really good players, whether it’s a moment of luck like the first goal that deflects off someone, or a moment of magic like the second goal was, you might not survive as much as we did last year.”
The moment of magic was City’s undoing. The clock had just ticked over 90, with minimal injury time, when Lankshear struck, but it was McGree’s run which created the opening. Varfolomeev, who had a solid afternoon, was left on the floor, and City hearts were broken.
“You can stop it,” Chris concluded.
“We showed the boys last week as well that there were a couple of moments before Szmodics scored where we don’t take aggressive action. We don’t try to squeeze up on a negative pass; they end up getting behind us, and it comes to Szmodics on the edge of the box, and he scores a wonder goal.
“It looks like a wonder goal, but there are probably a couple of moments where we could stop it.”
In fairness to the home side, the goal was deserved, not least after hitting the underside of the bar and inside of the post with the same shot. Their quality began to shine through in the latter stages, despite us having a potential winner ruled out (correctly) for offside.
Had Tanto Olaofe held his run slightly, we’d have been possibly looking at all three points ourselves, but having dropped deep, our chances were few and far between.
Chris concluded it is his job, and Tom Shaw’s, to find a way to be combative in the final third, as well as stoic in our own penalty area.
“We dropped a little bit too deep in that second half. It’s hard when you’re playing against good players and good teams, in the first league game of the season, but our job is to try and keep the aggression in the game.
“That’s from us as a staff, the group of players and the football club in general. How do we punch back?”
The Imps now have a full week before the visit of Portsmouth, who were last at the Bank on the final day of the 2024/25 season, breaking our hearts. Hopefully, we’ve got a pocket full of payback and an attacking punch waiting for them.
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