It seems to be a regular occurrence that we get an excellent result away from home and follow it up with a loss in front of our own fans, and it happened again yesterday. Everyone is aware of our home form, me and you, Michael Appleton and especially the away team, that will take advantage of it. We are set up as an away team, our pace on the counter is what wins us games, but when you are at home, you have to control the game, and when we do that, teams drop back into two blocks and we struggle to break that down. Yesterday is a prime example, we had most of our attacking joy from winning the ball back in central midfield and using Cohen Bramall as our outlet.
I think some fans need to take a step back, last week people were saying we were in a play-off battle and now they are saying we are in a relegation battle. Michael Appleton has even said we are in a relegation scrap and we are that’s the truth. One thing on our side is our squad, it’s levels above those around us but it’s all about mentality from here to the end of the season, we can’t go into games such as Morecambe at home, expecting to win it but I’m sure that won’t be the case. Both fans and players will need to get this out of their systems quick as February is such a key month, if we beat Gillingham, Morecambe and Doncaster I think we stay up, but if we drop points, especially to Morecambe it’s wide open again. The transfer business we have done will hopefully see us over the line, John Marquis has already got two in two games and looks to already be settled in, and Morgan Whittaker and Liam Cullen are also settling well.
When we get players back from injury the squad will be even stronger, we saw Adam Jackson for 75 minutes yesterday and I’m also led to believe Joe Walsh and Liam Bridcutt aren’t too far away. Tom Hopper and Chris Maguire are still yet to return, with the former hoping to continue his form. If we can keep our key players fit, we have, in my opinion, a squad that should be top half minimum. We finally named a full bench yesterday as well still with all these players missing. Max Melbourne and Hakeeb Adelakun were not in the squad, whether that is down to injury I do not know, but if it was down to selection it is good news as it shows our squad depth is building.
Onto the game, I thought there was a few players that didn’t turn up and that cost us the game. I’m not going to call out those players, as it is a matter of opinion. One outfield player that impressed me yet again was Ted Bishop at right-back, he isn’t a natural defender but he has been putting in solid performances there for weeks now, I do think we miss him in midfield as yesterday I’d say he was one of the most creative. He did well defensively too, he let a few crosses in but he also wasn’t afraid to get stuck in and do the dirty side of the game.
John Marquis scored again, making it two goals in two games. When he arrived I was impressed with the signing and I’d knew he would score goals and he certainly is doing that and proving some pessimistic fans wrong. I do get why some fans didn’t get too excited, as they were expecting Tyler Walker but instead we paved the way for Danny Cowley to sign him at Portsmouth. Now Walker has played two games without a goal and Marquis has scored two in two, I’m not saying Marquis is a better signing after just two games but some fans need to stop judging a player before they’ve played in an imps shirt.
The goals we conceded were disappointing for the most part, two set pieces goals is simply unforgivable especially when a side such as Burton come to visit, you know exactly what you are in for, you don’t need a performance analyst to tell you that. If you look at us yesterday at the back, we weren’t the tallest, if we ever have a fully fit squad, you’d likely have Poole Jackson Walsh Bramall as the four, and three of them are very competent in the air and despite his height so is Liam Bridcutt. Tom Hopper also helps us defend set pieces, so teams are going to exploit our lack of height.
The conditions did affect the game, the wind didn’t help us and perhaps it helped Burton more with putting us under pressure. Referee, Charles Breakspear affected the game in my opinion, he didn’t get any major decisions wrong but he was obsessed with his whistle throughout the ninety minutes, a bit like a dog when he gets a new toy, but let’s not make excuses for the performance from some of them.
The AllLincoln MOTM is Josh Griffiths.