One performance really bugged me: Andrew Kitchen, the referee. Early on, there was a foul on Freddie Draper by Flynn Downes, a yellow all day long, but he let it go. Fair enough, as long as it’s consistent, but a challenge by Ivan Varfolomeev later in the game was punished with a caution when the Ukrainian seemed to have actually won the ball. Downes got past McGrandles at one point and got tugged back, yellow, fair enough. McGrandles gets past Downes a little later, a similar tug to the ground, no yellow. Where is the consistency? Honestly, I thought that while the referee didn’t make any game-changing decisions, one or two of his choices were baffling. Even the late free kick: he gives three minutes of added time; we have a free kick which is stopped because of pulling beforehand, so we get a second chance, and he blows up almost as soon as it’s in play. I’ve liked this official in the past, but he looked a little at odds with the rules yesterday. He wasn’t quick to implement the five-second rule when they were 1-0 up either.
The one part of our performance that did feel flat was the opening half-hour of the second period. We had been so effective before the break, yet after half-time our attacking output disappeared, and Southampton gained a degree of control. We did not register a shot during that spell, and while the visitors were not exactly battering the door down themselves, Scienza did somehow manage to hit one post, watch the ball roll across the goalmouth and then strike the other, which did have me touching cloth for a moment in the press box. The match became surprisingly flat for a while, almost as though Southampton were content to protect what they had, and City could not quite rediscover the chaos of the first half.
Then came the final 15 minutes, and we went completely violent again. The substitutions were pivotal because they altered the feel of the game, not merely the personnel on the pitch. Mikkel Ladefoged had already been introduced, but the arrival of Chiedozie Ogbene on 76 minutes provided direct running and another problem for tiring defenders. Before Ogbene came on, City had not registered a second-half attempt. Afterwards, we had six, including two from Ogbene himself, while Coubis volleyed over and Ladefoged had another opening inside the area. We’re not talking about pure pace here – we have that in Street and Coubis on the field anyway, but it was a sense of belief in ability. Ogbene believes he can beat Championship defenders and get at them, and that showed, perhaps more so than one or two of our boys from last season, who maybe feel they’re stepping up.
Ogbene will naturally attract attention because of his pedigree, but it would be unfair to overlook the contribution of those who were already here. Hackett had taken a little criticism after Blackburn, yet it was his delivery which ultimately created the equaliser, while Tom Bayliss was involved in the move as well. Those players helped put Lincoln in this position in the first place, and the exciting thing about the squad now is that new arrivals are not necessarily replacing what came before. They are adding different weapons to an armoury which was already effective.
Then there was Ladefoged’s moment. From my angle, it initially looked a little scruffy, perhaps a big striker simply bundling his way onto something at the back post, but watching it again tells a different story. Bayliss helps work the ball across to Hackett, who knows exactly where he wants to deliver it, dropping the cross into that space between the centre-half and full-back. Ladefoged drifts into the back-post area and Nathan Wood simply loses him. The header itself is exactly the sort of finish his previous goals suggest he is capable of producing.
Honesty shout – I celebrated it as I’ve never done before in the media area. I always try to be respectful: more so away, but even at home I know there are representatives from other clubs around me. This wasn’t something I could keep a lid on. Ladefoged might have headed the ball home, but inside me, it felt like he’d dropped a Mentos mint into a bottle of Coke. I exploded; the lid flew off. Why? Obviously because I am a fan first and foremost, but because I got caught up in everything, carried along by our biggest home league attendance since December 1982. I was waiting for the big man to do it against Blackburn, but instead, he’s pulled us a point out of the bag, a point we deserved, against a relative giant.
What makes Ladefoged such an intriguing addition? Teams will know what Lincoln want to do, and they will spend all week talking about stopping it, but knowing a six-foot-eight striker is arriving at the back post is rather different from actually preventing him from winning the header. We are not going to become a one-trick pony, and there is more technical quality in this squad than some opposition supporters might care to acknowledge, but if the post-match assessment from other clubs becomes ‘they brought the big man on and bombarded us’, then excellent. I genuinely hope we hear that plenty of times.
We have taken two points from the first three home Championship games, which in isolation is probably not all that remarkable, but there is an obvious argument that Blackburn and Southampton were both matches we could have won. Turn those draws into victories and suddenly we would be sitting around the edge of the play-off places, which would be an extraordinary position for a newly promoted side, not least one with the lowest wage budget in the division. However, those performances matter when trying to work out what comes next, and the signs are overwhelmingly positive because we are not stealing points or desperately clinging on every week. We are creating enough to win matches.
That is perhaps the most encouraging thing of all. Lincoln City are not trying to pretend we are Southampton, Blackburn or anybody else in this division. We know what we are, we know what our advantages can be, and we appear increasingly comfortable leaning into them. The football might be chaotic, physical, direct, violent, ugly, anti-football or whatever description somebody wants to throw at it, but if it keeps producing afternoons where Championship heavyweights leave Sincil Bank complaining about how horrible Lincoln are to play against, there is another word I would happily use for it.
Successful.
Up the Imps.
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