The Imps’ ten-game unbeaten run came to an end yesterday as we failed to capitalize after taking the lead against mid-table Exeter City.
Mark Kennedy made a few changes to the side that drew with Cheltenham Town away from home on Tuesday night. Carl Rushworth kept his place in between the sticks despite feeling under the weather during the game on Tuesday and over the course of the week. The other player affected by illness, Sean Roughan returned to the side after his absence on Tuesday. Paudie O’Connor and Lewis Montsma kept their places and were paired with the returning Adam Jackson. The return of Jackson saw the skipper Regan Poole slot back into right wing-back. Matty Virtue returned to the starting eleven in place of Ted Bishop and slotted in alongside Ethan Erhahon. There was a single change in attack, which saw Danny Mandroiu return to the side alongside Jack Diamond and Ben House.
I want to put this loss into some perspective for you and I’m sure some of you will be fed up with me finding positives. I don’t expect anyone else to think as I do, but these articles are all about me giving my opinion and sparking some debate. This loss is our first in two months, and while I’m aware there has been a lot of draws in that, it is still impressive that we have managed to go that long unbeaten. We were bound to lose at some point and unfourtanely that came yesterday.
We are a lower mid-table League One side, flirting with the possibility of becoming a higher mid-table League One side. We are currently 12th in the league and I think we are possibly punching above our weight a little with the quality of the squad on paper, but Mark has made us hard to beat, which has won us a lot of points. When he went on the live Staceywest podcast, he spoke on his style of football and said in short, if we continued to play and we were in the early months of the season he would have been sacked. He has adapted well and the hard-to-beat nature of our side has been a massive part of our success.
We played quite well in the first half. We scored a good goal from a set-piece albeit a rather scrappy one but I think we deserved a goal for our general build-up play and pressure. Montsma did really well to keep it alive and Paudie went on to claim an easy third goal of the season (yes, I’m awarding him the one against Southampton) as well as a first league goal for City. We had real control of the game and I was confident of us getting all three points and being very happy with the result at 5 pm.
However, as we all know, football is a game that can change within a number of seconds and we were the architects of our own downfall yesterday. A costly mistake from Roughan and Rushworth saw Exeter score an easy goal and I think that is where we lost three points. I really hope that Roughan doesn’t get the blame for the loss yesterday as he is, at the end of the day, still extremely young and he has played a lot of football for someone his age this year. Both of them will learn from this error and they’ll probably never make the same mistake again. These things happen in football, even at the top level. We have to stick with them as they are still young and have been two of our best players this season.
We weren’t good enough yesterday in the second half but some credit has to be given to Exeter. I think they are a really good side and I see them as a good League One side despite their recent promotion. They have some really good players in their side, Sam Nombe is quality and he showed that yesterday with two goals. I really like their two wing-backs, Demetri Mitchell and Josh Key, the latter especially and I would love to see him at our club if we could ever bring him in. Rekeem Harper is a player that has quality but is only starting to get some momentum after a bumpy first few years of his professional career. Jay Stansfield is a good centre-forward to have as well and even though he didn’t score yesterday, he worked extremely hard.
Exeter have to be given some credit. We weren’t on it in the second half, which could be down to us playing on Tuesday and Eexter having a full week off but I think that is an old excuse to use. I personally think we are very evenly matched with Exter and a defensive mistake and home advantage turned the game in their favour. On Tuesday night, I was disappointed because Cheltenham are a poor side, but Exeter aren’t. They are a good side around the same level as us, I agree with the verdict that we weren’t good enough in parts of the game yesterday but losing to Exeter isn’t as bad as losing to Burton on Boxing Day for example.
One game doesn’t define our season, 46 games will define our season and I will look at our progress once they are all finished. Yes, we were poor, but every team has good and bad days. Yesterday was a bad one but not as bad as some we’ve had and learnt from this season.
Peterborough is a massive game, they are in a bad place by the looks of it and with our unbeaten home record, it could be a really interesting match-up between the two sides. Keep the faith, up the imps.