It was disappointment for Mark Kennedy’s side as we drew our third consecutive home game after racing into a two goal lead on Saturday afternoon.
Mark Kennedy made a few changes to his squad, with the majority being forced through injury. Jordon Garrick and Max Sanders were missing from the team sheet. Losing Garrick meant we lost our biggest attacking threat and our only real player that is willing to take a player on out-wide. Sanders was a massive loss as he has been crucial to the system from game one this season due to his engine. We probably lost two of the first names on the team sheet, which was a massive negative factor before we even kicked a ball. In positive news though, Carl Rushworth came back into the side after his injury and it was a first start of the season for Sean Roughan.
We looked excellent early on in the game and it didn’t take us long to find a way into the lead. Sean Roughan and Tashan Oakley-Booth combined down the left before the latter put in a ball, that Ted Bishop latched on to after a late run into the area. Just under ten minutes later, we had another goal again coming from good work from Sean Roughan and another late run from Ted Bishop into the box. At this point we looked comfortable in the game and it looked as if we would maybe do to Fleetwood what Peterborough did to us last weekend. The opposition looked rattled but we couldn’t take the opportunity to put the game to bed.
I’m not someone who openly criticizes referees as I understand that it isn’t an easy job but that officiating performance yesterday was one of the worst I have ever seen and we have seen many bad performances from them in the past. None of the referee’s decisions led to a goal but when one of our players is saying after the match they didn’t feel protected on the pitch, it is simply not good enough. I thought once the referee got one big decision wrong he lost control of the game and that played right into the hands of Scott Brown and his Fleetwood Town side.
There was one decision that gave them their first goal but it was the linesmen at fault this time. I have looked back at their first goal at it is almost certainly offside, but I’m not saying that Fleetwood didn’t deserve their goal, they gave us multiple warnings of it and Rushworth had to make multiple stops after our second goal. We looked vulnerable, similarly to how we looked against Peterborough and we were too easy to break down time and time again.
We came out for the second half and we had a good ten minutes of domination with a few half chances and corners but once again the talking point is the referee. I get the referee wanting the game to flow but the amount of decisions that were wrong was unforgivable. The equalising goal was from a free-kick after a foul when the referee could have easily given two or three fouls at the other end in our favour. Their goalkeeper shouldn’t have been on the field after clearly pushing and shoving Tom Hopper quite a few times but our man ended up with a yellow card as well as the goalkeeper. TJ had a ball thrown at him and the referee has just a word with him. Looking back at it now I can see why Ted said he didn’t feel protected out on the pitch. The only way I can describe it is by comparing it to a school football game, it was dangerous, tackles were flying in, nothing was being given and the players had absolutely no protection out there.
It looked as if we might hold on but Fleetwood got their equaliser from a “set-piece” but I’m not going to pretend like they didn’t deserve a point. We were the architects of our own downfall in the last twenty-minutes or so and we lacked experience to see us through the game. We now have four days to get something done in the transfer market, I feel a bright, quick and powerful forward, a midfielder and potentially some experience is the minimum we need before the window slams shut as we may be in a similar situation to last year lacking in the forward areas. I still don’t think we have too much to worry about but we need to start picking up three points against sides like this rather than a single point or we’ll be in a scrap like last season.
The AllLincoln MOTM is Ted Bishop