City secured a place in the next round of the EFL Trophy tonight, with a 4-2 win over Everton’s U21 side at a cold Sincil Bank.
Mark Kennedy made quite a few changes to the side that drew with Gareth Ainsworth’s Wycombe Wanderers on Saturday afternoon. Jordan Wright came back into the side, after missing out on a place in the matchday squad on Saturday due to injury. There was two changes in the back five as well, in a bid from Mark to keep the squad happy, Sean Roughan returned to the side as did TJ Eyoma. Matty Virtue retained his spot in the side but was paired alongside the returning Lasse Sorensen. Danny Mandroiu returned to the starting eleven, along with captain Tom Hopper.
As always with EFL Trophy games involving the U21 sides, I didn’t make the trip to Sincil Bank, but I did buy an iFollow pass, so I watched the game just without the below freezing temperatures. By 9pm, we had reached the next round of the trophy, scored four goals and secured ourselves prize money to add to our budget. A few things aside, it was a positive evening and one that gave a few rotation players a chance, as well as ones recovering from injury.
We set up with a back five, but it was with an intent to attack with Poole and Roughan pushing high up the pitch early on and we soon reaped the rewards of that with Poole putting City into the lead just after the half an hour mark. Diamond squeezed a clever pass through to the defender, whose first touch was perfect to take him round the defender and score. Spells of large possession saw City have plenty of chances and time around the Everton box, however we couldn’t find another way through and went into half-time level with our Under 21 opposition. I felt we were comfortable after the first half of football and we had a easy route to victory and the next round of the trophy, but Lincoln City never make it that easy.
We started the second half slowly and within a matter of minutes we found ourselves level with Everton, Francis Okoronkwo came on at the break and made an instant impact scoring after a cross from Tom Cannon. It isn’t easy in this situation, I thought we played well in the first-half and we were good enough value for our lead but a sucker punch in the first few minutes saw us level and once again we lost concentration at a crucial time and the game was turned on it’s head.
Tom Cannon, who really impressed me, fired Everton into the lead. Okoronkwo played the ball into space and Cannon’s high shot across goal beat Wright, who managed to get a hand to it but the power on the shot was just too much for the Imps stopper. I have to say it, I do really like the look of Cannon, he has an ability to make something out of nothing and if I’m honest I hadn’t heard anything about him until today but when I did research him during the game, I saw he is linked to Sheffield Wednesday and if we could join the race and potentially get him on loan, I would be pleased to take him.
Despite Cannon’s heroics, City were soon level again. Hopper was brought down inside the area, and the ever reliable Diamond put the penalty into the bottom left corner to get City firmly back into this tie. When I normally praise a player they prove me wrong and I’m glad as just minutes after our equaliser, Cannon went through on goal and his effort whistled past Wright’s far post.
An unlikely hero popped up for City in the form of Roughan, who grabbed his first City goal to restore our lead and put us in pole position to get into the next round. A well placed cross by Poole from the right hand side went all the way through to Roughan at the back post and his finish from a few yards out was enough to beat the young stopper in the Everton net. There was one big negative for City though, with substitute Ben House having to be stretchered off the pitch in added time. I hope he is better than what some are fearing as he has been a crucial part to our start to the season and he would be a massive loss as we go into a busy time of the season.
Diamond added his second of the game, just a few seconds from time after the Everton keeper had gone up for a late set-piece situation. The final whistle went and City claimed their place in the Quarter Finals of the EFL (Pizza) Trophy and claimed some nice money in the process.