City picked up another hard-fought point on Saturday away at Fratton Park in Mark Kennedy’s second competitive match in charge.
First of, I’d like to apologise for how late this article is out and it will all be back to normal for the Doncaster game and the next league game against Forest Green at home. It’s been a busy weekend and I wasn’t able to make the game so I watched the full match this morning in an effort to deliver my thoughts and analysis on the match.
Mark Kennedy made one change to the side that drew with Exeter City last weekend, with Ted Bishop coming in for Anthony Scully. Mark told the radio that it is an illness and with Ben House’s absence through illness too, it’s more likely than not that the manager is telling the truth and not covering up a move elsewhere and on top of that, if you have spoken with Scully, you will know how much he respects this club so I’d expect him to play until the deal was done, similarly to Edun.
I spoke about consistency so many times last year in the defence and it seems like we have got that this year with the exact back four and goalkeeper starting for the second time in a row. We saw last year how MA sometimes changed the defence based on the occasion, for example bringing in Adam Jackson against a team with a big aerial threat but Mark stuck with his two trusted central defenders, which as I’ve said will give us a much more consistent backline and give the defenders a better relationship with each other and the goalkeeper.
We managed to keep Pompey fairly quiet in the early stages for most of the game, with Rushworth not having any particularly hard saves to make, but he again impressed me. He came for crosses and caught shots that most goalkeepers would probably palm away out for a corner. He looks like the best goalkeeper in the league for me and no disrespect to Josh Griffiths but he looked miles above him in the game on Saturday. Griffiths was a good shot stopper but this lad has it all and is very good at it all too.
We saw again why I and so many other City fans were crying out for Max Sanders last season. He seemed to be on his out under Appleton but now he looks as if he will play around 40 league games for us. His engine is crucial to the way we play and his passing range is exceptional. The same applies to Lasse Sorensen, maybe he wasn’t on his way out completely but he was not favoured by Appleton in the second half of the season and now he has hardly put a foot wrong in two games and contended for MOTM in both of them.
Hopper was crucial for us again and he put in a real battling captains performance. He won most of his defensive aerial duels and he helped get the pressure of the defence by winning free-kicks, which is a real asset when he are playing one of the best teams in the league away from home. I want to praise Adelakun again, we didn’t score or create any big chances but one thing I noticed with Hakeeb was his hard work off the ball and so far he has impressed more in these two games than he did in the whole of last season. It seems as if Hakeeb is growing in confidence and is starting to believe in himself more, and when the new signings come, he may well keep them out of the side for a short while.
We’ve still got work to do, it wasn’t all positive. We wouldn’t have been able to win the game with our lack of attacking threat, but we’ve got new signings to come and we still have Scully, House and Vernam to return as well as Danny Mandriou returning to training. We have the foundations to be a comfortable mid table team and by the end of August, we will have them attacking recruits to help us score more goals and steal more points away from the likes of Portsmouth.
One of the biggest things for me is how fit we are looking so far this season. Ross Burbeary and the fitness team have done an excellent job to get us to a point where we look fitter than some of the biggest teams in League One. Danny Cowley praised that side of our game as well and if other managers are already noticing it then it is a good sign for the future. Like I said we have work to do and we aren’t perfect but we are in a good place and I personally can’t wait for the Forest Green game on Saturday.
The AllLincoln MOTM is Regan Poole.
I haven’t spoke of Danny or Nicky pre-match or so far in this article and I thought I’d address that. It is easy to title an article with their names in and gain views and traffic but I personally feel we are past that. We’ve come up against them multiple times now and we have had two managers since they departed and they have managed two clubs since they departed. However, that Pompey side is looking decent and they will be looking for play-offs this year and if they were to get promoted, I’d be pleased for the both of them and I wish them all the luck this season, except from the return game at Sincil Bank.