City started their EFL trophy campaign away at Barnsley last night. The Imps easily beat their divisional rivals by three goals courtesy of Ted Bishop and Jovon Makama.
Mark Kennedy made multiple changes to the side that drew with Fleetwood on Saturday. Jordan Wright came back into the side in place of Carl Rushworth, while Jack Diamond and Jay Benn both made their City debuts. However the biggest news was the return of long-term absentee Joe Walsh at centre-half. Walsh also captained the side showing the trust Mark has in him, if we can keep Joe fit he can be a massive asset and one that really helps balance our defence too. With everyone fit, we have Poole, Walsh, O’Connor, Jackson and Montsma, these all are really good options and if they all keep fit Mark will have headaches.
I was going to write a proper match report but as I have only seen the extended highlights and spoke to people who watched the game, I’m going to list three things we learnt from our Papa John’s outing.
#3 – Joe Walsh is Key
This first point is fairly straightforward. We all know what Joe Walsh can offer to us when he is fully fit but having him available is easier said than done. However, with our new medical and fitness team there is every chance of that happening. Walsh offers us a balance to our defence and we saw that in the first half on Tuesday.
Another point I’d like to make about Walsh and this season as a whole is that we look to be managing our players in a much better way. Under Appleton we always seemed to bring players back too early into the team, Walsh being a prime example along with Bridcutt. It seems now as if Mark trusts the medical teams judgment. That is important for us keeping players fit and having them available for long periods rather than rushing them back.
#2 – If you are Good Enough, you are Old Enough
I really like this point and last night I was thinking about it in abbundance. Jordan Wright started the game and for a keeper, he is extremely young but he is trusted by the manager. I really enjoyed the performance of Jay Benn and if Jack Diamond wasn’t on the pitch, he would have been my MOTM. At such a young age, he looked composed both on and off the ball and he dealt with the red card incident like he’d played over 200 games of EFL football.
I am very pleased for Jovon Makama to score his first Lincoln City goal. Hopefully he can take this confidence into his performances at Brackley and have another impressive loan spell. Another positive was Oisoin Gallagher making his Imps debut on the bench and if there is any reason why this competition should be kept, it is for the development of young players who would not get the minutes in the league games.
#1 – Jack Diamond.
This point is simple and my biggest takeaway from the game. Jack Diamond is going to be crucial for our season. He is a player that I have always liked and followed in a way, and I’m aware of his quality and we saw some of that last night. He impressed many last night and he won the official club MOTM, he managed to make that much of impression having only been in the building for a day and having hardly trained with the team (I’m not even certain he has at all yet). Diamond will be a massive asset for us by the looks of it and hopefully we can keep adding to it on deadline day with a few new signings.
I’ll be back with a proper match review for Cambridge away and I’ll have some content out tomorrow for deadline day (if we make any moves) and some content on the upcoming game too. Up the Imps!