The second half changed the perception completely. From kick-off until around the 70-minute mark, we produced all six of our attempts, with two on target and several moments of genuine threat. We were seemingly playing much higher up the pitch and asking questions of Bolton rather than merely absorbing theirs. What changed? Tactically, nothing. We just did things a little better, and them swapping their wingers over perhaps allowed us more space to break, as they tried to push their full backs further up the pitch.
Calum Elder had a good opportunity shortly before the goal, arriving around the penalty spot and trying to volley an effort which he couldn’t quite catch cleanly. It was the sort of chance which, with a better connection, could easily have produced the opener. Then Ben House did exactly that a few minutes later.
Ben’s goal is great, because it’s our game plan in a nutshell. Get forward, create set pieces, create havoc. Big shout-out to Rob Street, who comes on and within seconds has won the throw that results in the goal. It was a blocked cross, but it was immediate energy and endeavour that brought the throw and the goal. In fairness, they’d dealt well with our throws at the front stick, but this time it went over everyone; this time the referee didn’t punish Freddie for being a bully, and this time, that ‘world-class without the ball’ centre forward showed he’s not bad with it either by glancing a header past Bonham.
Once we were 1-0 up, the game state changed the balance of things. Bolton naturally pushed forward; they had more possession and began taking more attempts, particularly after their changes. Jayden Nelson immediately looked threatening, and there was a spell where they began throwing shots towards George Wickens’ goal.
However, quantity doesn’t automatically mean quality. Their nine second-half attempts produced only 0.63 xG, with plenty of efforts from distance, blocked shots and moments which looked threatening without necessarily being high-quality opportunities. George Wickens still had work to do, and he did it very well, but we weren’t being carved open repeatedly.
That’s going to be important this season. Once we get the first goal, I’d back us against an awful lot of teams because we’re organised, committed and defend our penalty area extremely well. We also understand how to manage the emotional rhythm of a match, which becomes even more important when you’re playing sides with bigger budgets and greater individual quality. Sure, it didn’t come to pass against Boro, but think about that – we were what, 90 seconds from a draw there as well.
If we concede first, Championship football might present us with a much harder problem, as we saw last weekend. That’s not because we don’t have players capable of breaking teams down, but because the quality we’re facing now is higher and opponents will be better equipped to protect leads. That makes the opening goal absolutely crucial for us, and it makes players like Melia, Olaofe, Wheatley and (hopefully) Ladefoged more important, as they’ll be there to be creative and get us back into games, just as much as they’ll be there to get us ahead.
Another major talking point afterwards was the referee, with plenty of criticism coming from the Bolton side. The numbers don’t particularly suggest we got everything our own way, because we were penalised eight times during the first half compared with Bolton’s two. Freddie Draper was adjudged to have committed six of those fouls himself.
I’ve watched some of them back, and there were certainly occasions where Freddie fouled his opponent. He had a huge physical battle all afternoon with Forino and who had his hands full dealing with him, and deal with him he did. There were moments which looked extremely soft. On one occasion, Freddie was penalised despite appearing to have Sam Dalby with both arms around him, which rather summed up how difficult some of those decisions were to understand.
The idea that everything was somehow falling Lincoln’s way doesn’t really match the numbers. Across the full match we committed 14 fouls compared with Bolton’s six, while we collected three yellow cards. Freddie alone was given eight fouls against him, more than the entire Bolton team committed.
There was also frustration from the home crowd around our long throws, which I found slightly odd. For us, the long throw is effectively a set piece, and if Calum Elder is taking it, then we’re going to allow him to come across and take it. The laws of the game allow you to set up for a set piece, and in fairness to Speedie, he did speed things up once we got on the ball from time to time. Nobody would question a right-back jogging across the pitch to take an inswinging corner from the opposite side, so I’m not entirely sure why a long throw should suddenly be treated differently.
Did he move the game along as vehemently as Robert Madley in the first game? No. We were able to take the sting out, but Bolton fans accusing us of the dark arts is a bit ‘pot and kettle’ given how they were, admirably, under Ian Evatt. I always wanted to be like them: good at the dark arts but with power across the park, and I think we’re nearly there.
If we’re now beginning to develop some of that ourselves, particularly at Championship level, then good. We’re not going to visit clubs such as Bolton and go pound-for-pound with them financially, because we can’t simply match their wage budget and expect the talent on the pitch to settle everything for us. There will be afternoons when we have to find another way.
We’re Lincoln City, and sometimes that means we have to scrap, defend, frustrate and make the game horrible for the opposition. There will be spells where we have to accept that another team is going to have the ball and trust ourselves to keep them away from the areas that really matter. Yesterday was one of those afternoons and, ultimately, we handled it very well.
There were other moments of game management which frustrated Bolton supporters. Tom Bayliss went down with a head injury and it broke up the rhythm of the game, while Calum Elder also needed treatment for a facial injury and that stopped play again. Whether every stoppage was entirely accidental or whether there was a little bit of intelligence involved, I’ll leave others to decide.
What I perhaps learned more than anything was not to trust the immediate perception of a match quite as much. At half-time, I thought Bolton had battered us, but they hadn’t. They’d dominated possession, put plenty of crosses into our penalty area and made us look almost non-existent as an attacking force, but they hadn’t created chance after chance.
In the second half, we changed the game. We became more threatening, found the first goal and then did what Lincoln City teams have traditionally done very well when they’re at their best. We dug in, defended properly and made sure Bolton’s pressure never turned into the sort of chances they needed.
Perhaps that’s the biggest lesson from yesterday. Championship football doesn’t require us to suddenly become something we’re not, and it doesn’t mean every player who carried us out of League One has to disappear because somebody else’s new signing has a more glamorous CV. Sometimes the qualities that got us here are still the qualities that can win us games at this level.
House can still be House, Draper can still be Draper. Towler can step up, as he did superbly; Wickens looks assured at the level and will be delighted with his first clean sheet. Even Deji, superb in the first two games, seems to have now become an accepted first-choice centre-back, so actually, perception is changing quickly. Yes, on another afternoon, Dalby’s effort goes in, and we lose, but on another afternoon, we score early and end up 3-1 to the good against Portsmouth.
The truth is we’ve now had three Championship games, and we haven’t looked completely out of our depth in any of them. There have been good and bad points, but ultimately, the only points that matter are ‘three’ which we have finally got on the board. Last time we did that at Bolton, 14th February, 1984, Torvill and Dean danced the Bolero (I’ve mentioned that so much, but bear with me, because I have a play on words worked out), and finally, we have danced out of BL6 with a little bit of glory of our own, done our way.
Up the Imps.
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