Lincoln City took on Newcastle’s Under 21 side last night at Sincil Bank. The game ended in a 2-0 win for City, with a string of reserve players putting in a professional performance to see us through to the next round.
The team news saw rotation in abundance. Mark Kennedy switched it up and returned to the back four, with Jordan Wright and Jamie Robson coming back into the side, while Joe Walsh returned from injury and went straight back. Elicha Ahui also came into the side for the first time, making his professional debut. There was changes in midfield too, the relatively out-of-favour Tashan Oakley-Boothe was handed a start, while Lasse Sorensen returned to the side for the first time since our loss at Bolton. The changes in attack saw Jordon Garrick and Charles Vernam come back into the side and they played alongside the in-form Ben House and Danny Mandroiu.
Not many people are fond of the EFL Trophy, and I understand as I am one of those. I haven’t been to one of these games since the Manchester United U21’s were in town and unless I get offered to go, I highly doubt I will go again. I don’t like the U21 teams, and I think it would be a much more respected competition without them. Obviously as I’ve mentioned I didn’t go to the game last night, but I did watch it back this morning to give a good analysis of the game. We looked good, as you can expect the rotation saw us maybe drop below our usual level of performance, but we got the job done and we are through to the knockout rounds of the competition.
I was extremely pleased to see Elicha Ahui make his professional debut, he becomes the seventh City academy player to make their professional debut since the start of last season. Mark said at the start of the season that we will not be giving out chances just for the sake of it and watching Ahui play last night It showed that he has earnt his chance to impress and be in the side. He was helped by the absence of Jay Benn, but I’ll spoil my player ratings here and say that I thought Ahui was a big contender for MOTM, and that is not just because it is his debut but it’s because he actually played very well. I don’t want to overreact and heap pressure on the lad, but he could definitely be a future star for our first team by the looks of it.
It didn’t take City too long to score either, Danny Mandroiu opened his Imps account with a tidy finish in the eighth minute. It was nice work by Garrick to nick the ball back in the area and Mandroiu did all the rest with a composed finish into the bottom corner. I have been really impressed by Mandroiu since he arrived and I’m hoping this goal will give him the confidence to go on a scoring run for the side. The work from Garrick was also crucial in the goal and I don’t think that can be ignored either, he didn’t give it up and got his rewards for that.
In usual City fashion however, we couldn’t have a night full of positives as we saw Oakley-Boothe forced off with an injury just before the twentieth minute mark, he was replaced by Jacob Davenport, who made his debut for the Imps last time out in this competition before getting injured. I feel for Tashan as he has been on the fringes lately and with everyone starting to return to fitness, his chances of a first-team return are not looking likely at all. I feel I’m in the minority when I say I do quite like the way Tashan plays, I think he could impact the game more, but he has some neat touches and passes and his game against Bristol Rovers and Derby showed what he was all about. Unfortunately, he just cannot find that consistency to play well every game. He clearly has talent, because we’ve seen it this season, but he struggles to show it in some games.
While we are on the midfielder’s subject, I thought Davenport had an extremely good game and again he showed his quality both on and off the ball and I think he might just start giving Mark a headache in the league. If we stick with the back five this Saturday, which is very likely that means we only play with two midfield players and with both Max Sanders and Matty Virtue being rested and Davenport playing well, Mark has a big headache going into the game on Saturday, which can only be a good thing.
We looked to be seeing out the game in a professional manner, with Mark trying to give the kids on the bench as much game-time as possible. One of them was Freddie Draper and he got his first City goal yesterday after returning to the side for the first from the bench after an injury that kept him out for some time. A brilliant moment for the striker and it is what this competition is all about, as much as I overlook it and you probably do too, many young players have got their debuts in the competition, just in recent times I recall that Sam Long was one of them and not so recently Ellis Chapman was another, who has gone on to make a number of EFL appearances.
All in all, last night saw our second-string players get minutes and an opportunity to impress, we made 10k in prize money, two players scored their first City goal and we another academy graduate make their professional debut. It might not be as important to us as the Ipswich game last Saturday or the upcoming Sheffield Wednesday game but for the squad I think this game was high importance as well.
I see us returning to a five system against Wednesday on Saturday but how we go about the game will certainly be interesting and hopefully we will see a repeat of what happened last year.