Yesterday, City rounded out their pre-season campaign with a home outing against Championship side, Blackburn Rovers. Bradley Dack scored the only goal as we came out losers by one-goal deficit to Blackburn. Still, as we enter the final week before our important opener against newly-promoted Exeter City, there were plenty of positives.
There was some important news pre-match, Joe Walsh is out with an injury as is Ben House. It was good to see Chris Maguire at the game too, despite all of the comments made he has been professional and turned up at least, but I can’t imagine him playing for the football club again, even if he doesn’t move onto another club this summer. There was no Freddie Draper or Danny Mandriou, which leaves us short but the latter should be available sometime in August.
We go into the season earlier than we do usually, which makes fans feel we are not ready for the season yet. To an extent that is the truth, but we have done the bulk of our business and it’s the final pieces we need such as a midfielder and another attacker. The small bits of business that we need to do will be dealt with as we still have over a month left of the window, and it will give Mark and the recruitment team more of an idea of what we need before the window ends.
Onto the positives of the game itself, the midfield looked very impressive. It’s no secret that we are light in that area and if Sanders or Sorensen were to get injured, things would look bleaker but if they are fit we have a very capable midfield. Sorensen looked like a completely different player and it was his best outing in an imps shirt so far. As for Sanders, he looks like a nailed-on starter against Exeter this Saturday and his comments against Grimsby were interesting. In short, he said that he deserved to play more last year and a new manager and new start for him is just what he needs going forward. With Max, we have a midfielder that was close to the Brighton first team and was tipped to break in eventually. He instead decided to come to City but he was never truly trusted by Appleton it seems. If his pre-season outings are anything to go by, then we have a player on our hands and one that will almost feel like a new signing.
As well as our midfield, our defence looks solid too. At times last year, we were swapping our centre-half pairings almost every week, which isn’t suitable for anyone and we lost so much consistency by doing that. However, this year it seems we have a back four and goalkeeper that is nailed on to start. That consistency will hopefully help us be solid at the back and concede fewer goals. Paudie O’Connor looks like he will be starting every week and he looks to be building a good partnership with Regan Poole, who in my opinion is our biggest asset going into next season and if we were to lose him then there would be a reason to be worried. TJ Eyoma has received praise throughout pre-season and he looks as if he will be the favoured right-back from now on. It will be important for us if he can get back to his 20/21 form.
We still do look light in attack. Some will question Tom Hopper’s goal output but he has been a very important player for us over the last few years and he offers good holdup play and he wins fouls in good areas too. Charles Vernam has still got to settle in but he has shown some good signs during the pre-season matches. We will have to rely on Anthony Scully’s goal output as we did for much of last season but relying on a player that has around thirty league goals in two seasons is not something worrying. On top of that, hopefully, Adelakun can start fresh as well after his poor year last year, as he does have the ability to be an important player for us.
The anticipation is building ahead of the new season and we should have a rather busy week, as we should find out the small details such as squad numbers and captaincy, which all adds to the excitement. Hopefully, we can also add another new face before the season starts as well, but as I’m sure you are, I am very much looking forward to getting back to Sincil Bank and supporting the lads.
The AllLincoln MOTM is Lasse Sorensen. With it being pre-season, this MOTM won’t go towards the season total but the performance from Lasse was very impressive and if he continues it, he will surely have more MOTMs this season.