Yesterday afternoon, we welcomed Gareth Ainsworth’s organised Wycombe side to Sincil Bank. Despite poor form, Wycombe are sitting in a play-off spot and were the early leaders in the title race. They are good at what they do, the ball spends more time in the air than it does on the floor, but unlike the likes pf Gillingham, it’s organised play based on hard-work. It’s no secret that we play more aesthetic football, but direct football works and we know that better than anyone else from the Cowley era. The Wycombe goal looked just like a goal we’d have scored five years ago. A centre-half scores from open play after staying up, meaning we are outnumbered in defence. It’s a simple piece of play but there is not much you can do to stop it.
The pre-match news again surrounded injuries. Joe Walsh was missing but that turned out to be a pre-cautionary measure to make sure he can be fit for future fixtures and not to overuse him too soon. Brooke Norton-Cuffy came into the side for his first senior start. Max Melbourne also came back onto the bench. Liam Cullen also came into the side for Morgan Whittaker. I’ve liked Whittaker so far, but he has become less influential in the last few games, so a rest might do him good. Wycombe started strongly but the wind was going against them and their direct style. In the opening minutes though, we took the lead. A quickly taken short corner to Anthony Scully was steered along the floor to Liam Cullen who passed it through a group of bodies into the bottom corner. Our corner techniques have come in for some criticism over the last few weeks with short corners not working but like yesterday when we are shorter than the opposition it can really pay off playing it short.
We started to use the wind to good effect and Chris Maguire forced a save from Stockdale from an ambitious effort 40 yards out. The rest of the first-half went the way of Wycombe, but no real chances were created, with many balls into the box and midfielders blasting shots from 25 yards out over the bar. My only real worry was that Wycombe would have the wind behind them in the second half causing us problems in our own box but over the course of the first-half it did die down a little. Just before the interval Brooke Norton-Cuffy went on a spectacular run, and went close to getting a shot away. Norton-Cuffy was excellent all game long, he started slowly with a few moments of nervousness but he grew into the game really well. I won’t make comments saying he is Arsenal’s future right-back but if he can continue to play like he did yesterday, he will go places.
We created chances early in the second half, Max Sanders had a glorious chance but couldn’t put the finishing touch on it. On the topic of Sanders, hopefully he gets a real run of games now. McGrandles looks so much better with Sanders next to him and the midfield looks to have a bit of steel to it rather than having a rather weak Fiorini in the middle of the park. We did really well second half for me, we won almost every second ball, with Eyoma and Poole in the heart of defence, we were never going to win all of our aerial battles but it was pleasing that we won the second ball more often than not. I think MA deserves quite a lot of credit for the result, he clearly knew Wycombe would stop us playing out from goal-kicks so to use Marquis as a target-man was an excellent bit of work, and I think Marquis’ performance yesterday has once again showed why we need to extend his deal beyond this year. Not only is he a poacher but he can bring other players into the game and relive pressure by holding up the ball.
We were unlucky to concede at the time we did, that ball in from the left was something we dealt with all game but the one time they got a decent ball in they scored. You can’t really blame anyone, you could look deeper and ask why either the centre-forward or one of our midfielders didn’t follow their centre-half into the box but we were bound to have one lapse in concentration and it was still an unlucky goal to concede. We really should have lost the game from that point on, we definitely deserved the point, if not two more but Josh Griffiths made a fabulous stop to keep it at 1-1 in stoppage time and the following corner resulted in a massive goal-line scramble with an imps defender managing to clear.
I’ve seen some comments about the referee on social media so I may aswell comment on him myself, I though he had a very good first-half, letting the game flow well but he changed second-half and started to give a lot in Wycombe’s favor in my biased opinion as a City fan. The red card was harsh on Scowen I have to admit, it’s a yellow card but not a yellow when he’s already booked and as the referee forgot (this is League One standard officiating by the way) he had already booked the lad, but it had no effect on the final result, which will lighten the blow for Gareth Ainsworth.
We take the point and go again Tuesday in another massive game.
The AllLincoln MOTM is Brooke Norton-Cuffy.