Lincoln City drew with Sheffield Wednesday today at Sincil Bank, extending their unbeaten home run to six games.
Mark Kennedy went with the same team that managed to beat Ipswich Town by a goal to nil away from home last weekend, but there was some change on the bench, the most significant being the return of Jacob Davenport to the matchday squad. Tom Hopper remained missing, while Joe Walsh missed out on the squad entirely. Tashan Oakley-Boothe missed out through injury, as did Teddy Bishop but the latter could return to the team in the next few fixtures, which will give us a massive boost going into a busy month before the break for the World Cup.
I saw some people calling the back five at home negative and I get the frustration, it does indeed look negative, but you have to look at the calibre of the opposition we are facing. Sheffield Wednesday are third in the league and their squad, with all due to respect to our own, is miles ahead of where we are. They have Barry Bannan, who is just too good for this level and when he is putting in balls for the likes of Lee Gregory and Michael Smith you have to respect what they have got. That is all without mentioning they had Malik Wilks from the bench, who was a top player for Hull City, when they were battling with us for promotion to the Championship a few years ago, so it was clear pre-match that it was going to be a struggle.
The negativity from some for the team news spread to others in the first ten minutes of the match, with Wednesday taking the lead to a rare mistake by Carl Rushworth. I have to give Carl a lot of credit here, mistakes happen, and it is all about how you bounce back from them, and Carl did that brilliantly. He got a touch of the ball shortly after the goal and got on with it and made some crucial claims and saves throughout the rest of the game.
Conceding an early goal is not ideal, especially with the game plan we were employing but it always felt like we had a goal in us on the break with the likes of Jack Diamond and Danny Mandroiu. We really struggled in the first half; however, I don’t remember any clear-cut opportunities for Wednesday that Carl had to save. This seems to be a bit of a trend lately and it is credit to our defence. Ipswich had 33 shots, with only 5 of them on target and it was a similar story yesterday, with Wednesday only getting 3 of their 17 shots on target. We seem to be better than ever at stopping teams hurting us and being compact. The game plan works and yesterday without the error, we would have won the game but a point against a team that is third in the division is a great result.
Things did look bad in the first half if you were concentrating on our attacking output but if you take away the mistake, we limited the opposition, and our defending was top notch again. Mark must have given them a rocket at half-time however, as the boys came out fighting and looking to get some control on the game. Wednesday may have thought they would have cruised to the final whistle, but with Mark Kennedy’s Lincoln City that is never the case. Some smart play from Ben House saw Mandroiu played through on goal early in the half and Irishman equalised for City, making it two goals in two games for himself.
I was tempted to title this article ‘I love Danny Mandroiu’ but luckily, I steered away from the cringe that may have caused, but seriously he is one hell of a player. It has definitely been worth the wait to see him in action, and he looks like a natural goalscorer which is something we’ve been crying out for since Anthony Scully left earlier this season. I’ve been looking forward to him since he arrived and he is becoming our statement signing and I hate to say it, but he will earn us some tidy profit in the future if carries on performing this way.
We were excellent for the rest of the second half, and I think we looked the more likely to score on the break, which is a massive positive against a side with this much quality. The whole of the back three could have won MOTM, there was at least five times when all of them put their bodies on the line for the team and that is all we can ask for as fans. I have to give a massive shout out to Matty Virtue yesterday as he didn’t stop running for ninety minutes and he did a decent enough job to help stop Bannan causing trouble.
Apart from the goal, the only negative to take is the fact that Bannan was afforded so much space and I don’t actually know how he didn’t punish us at least once throughout the game. I’m not a qualified football manager or a footballer, but I know how dangerous he can be but it’s easy to identify the threat, stopping it is a different story though.
We have a quick turnaround to Barnsley on Tuesday night and another performance like that would see us take something.