Lincoln City took on Fleetwood Town yesterday away from home looking to bounce back from an embarrassing and heavy defeat to local rivals Peterborough United at home a week before. Fleetwood on the other hand came into the game off the back of an impressive win against Derby County.
There were wholesale changes by Mark Kennedy, and that was maybe a sign that maybe it wasn’t going to be as easy as we would have hoped pre-match. We went into the game with a massive list of players unavailable, Carl Rushworth and Sean Roughan were missing due to international duty, while TJ Eyoma, Joe Walsh, Ethan Erhahon, Mide Shodipo and Charles Vernam weren’t available due to injury. On top of that, we missed Paudie O’Connor due to suspension, after he picked up a yellow card to take his total to ten against Peterborough. These absentees meant we saw a much changed Imps’ side. Jordan Wright made just his third league start, and the defence had a few changes too, with Regan Poole returning (a massive positive) and Harry Boyes coming back into the side. Max Sanders came back into the side in place of the injured Ethan Erhahon. Ted Bishop also came into the front three for Jack Diamond, who has been poor, to say the least, lately.
Sam Long returned to the bench after he was recalled from his loan spell at National League side Bromley, while Tashan Oakley-Boothe also returned to the matchday squad for the first time since January, highlighting just how thin the squad is. Dylan Duffy and Jovon Makama took their places on the bench, along with Diamond and Luke Plange, who is still in search of his first City goal.
We played better than last Saturday last week, but we came away with the same result. 0 points and our third loss in a row. I thought we looked a lot better yesterday, the best we have looked in a while. We were better than we were in the losses against Exeter and Peterborough and the draw against Cheltenham a few weeks ago. However, despite the improvement we came away with nothing and I can guarantee that 80% of our fanbase won’t see the slight improvement of performance as a positive. We badly needed a win, because we won’t get three points next week and I think that is why the majority are not seeing the performance as a positive at all.
Sheffield Wednesday lost today as I’m writing this, they won’t make that mistake again and even with them playing on Wednesday before our game, I still don’t see us laying a glove on them. They are a class above and with our injury crisis, we don’t stand much chance. I’m not being negative, I like to think I’m a very positive Lincoln fan and sometimes that causes me some problems, but I just can’t see us bouncing back from this next week, it won’t be that easy. On a more positive note, I believe we will stay up, we need three more points at the most in my opinion, which we will get at some point and the teams in the bottom four are awful. We’ve lost three on the spin and we aren’t any closer to the drop zone, that should tell you a lot about the quality down in the bottom four this season. I am 99% sure that Lincoln City will be a League One side come August of 2023.
The game itself wasn’t much to write home about. We started really well, something we’ve struggled to do recently so I was more than pleased in the first fifteen minutes. Matty Virtue broke through early after some bright play and had his tame effort saved by Jay Lynch in the Fleetwood net. We had another big chance as well early on, Danny Mandroiu showed good perseverance and managed to get himself in on goal but his chipped effort had a little too much lift and it ended up on the roof of the net rather than in the net.
Despite showing a bit of promise, in classic Lincoln City style we got caught out at the other end and conceded a set piece goal. Goals from set pieces are awful to give away, so to do it twice in the same game, it feels like a massive gift to Fleetwood. The first goal could be considered unlucky, but we have to be better. If we deal with it earlier, the deflection doesn’t happen and the game remains 0-0 and we potentially go on to get points to take back to Lincoln.
There was a little tweak in system that I noticed before Lewis Montsma’s injury, we seemed to match Fleetwood a little bit in periods of the game. Rather than our 3-4-3 (or 5-2-3, depending on how you see it), we lined up with a 3-5-2 and crowded out the midfield areas. I thought it was an interesting tactical switch by Mark, because it could have been done for multiple reasons. The first and most obvious one was to match us up with Fleetwood to nullify their threat of playing through the middle, and the second option was that he had no trust in either Sanders or Bishop to play alongside Virtue in a midfield two, without Erhahon, which I think is a very viable option. We really missed Ethan yesterday and I think if he had played we may have drawn or even won the game. This does teach us a very valuable lesson though, we can’t keep relying on one player. We did it with Liam Bridcutt and all everyone kept saying was ‘what if we had Liam available’, we can’t have that. We need players that step up and deliver when other players aren’t available.
I suppose it would be pointless not to touch on our goal, as we don’t score many this season and it was certainly the highlight of our afternoon. It was nicely worked between Sanders and Bishop down the left and the ball in from Ted was magnificent. Regan applied a nice finish but it was all about the ball in. Bishop has to be in the team for the rest of the season if he is fit. Whether that is in the midfield two (probably not with Virtue and Erhahon available together), or the front three, he has to be there. Even better, we adapt to a three in midfield and put him in the ten, because he was the difference maker for us yesterday. When we lost Ted in the seventieth minute, we had no threat at all, that speaks volumes.
I speak about Ted’s influence speaking volumes, I think it also says a lot about the other members of the squad. Mandroiu and Diamond failed to deliver that impact once again and that is why we are losing games because we have Ted and maybe a few other players looking to make an impact, the attack has no fluidity, no creativity and they run out of ideas within thirty minutes, it needs to improve. I know it’s not easy with the lack of options and if they were available, I’d have Vernam and Shodipo both starting on the flanks rather than Mandroiu and Diamond. I like Jack Diamond, that is no secret I’ve said that multiple times but he hasn’t been at it for months, Mandroiu shows quality, he shows a little touch on the ball where you just think wow, he’s a quality footballer but it’s only ever shown in small bursts. The only reason he won’t get as much stick as Diamond is purely because he has scored a decent amount of goals this season and he’s come in from the League of Ireland, so I can give him the benefit of the doubt at times.
I have seen a lot of people getting on the back of Luke Plange and it is something I thought I’d address as I think some people see a striker wearing the number nine and think he should have scored a good number of goals by now. 95% of strikers in professional football are nothing without the players around them. You could put Harry Kane, who recently become England and Tottenham’s all time top goalscorer, in the Lincoln team and bar a few moments of individual brilliance because he has that top level quality, he’d struggle. Plange strikes me as a lonely figure up front, he gets no service and everything he tries doesn’t pay off. He is in a very similar situation to the one we saw Liam Cullen in last season, who now starts and scores for Swansea on a regular basis. If Plange was playing for Sheffield Wednesday or Plymouth, he’d have goals but he can’t do anything without balls being played into him. He hardly touched the ball yesterday and every time he did, he was dropping deep. He’s been underwhelming but a lot of the blame doesn’t lie on him.
I’ll talk a little bit about the second goal, but you’ve all seen it so I’m not going to go into much detail. I don’t think it was a corner, even watching it back I don’t think it was and everyone I’ve spoken to has said the same thing. Despite the poor decision though, we can’t make excuses for conceding another set piece goal. We’ve been good at defending them all year but yesterday was a disgrace. If you have all ten or even nine outfield players in the box, you should be defending it and we didn’t. We have to hold some accountability, even if it wasn’t a corner in the first place.
The only other positive to touch on I suppose was Dylan Duffy. He showed some decent touches and it was important for him to get is debut. He is a bit like what Ben House was to us twelve months ago, we might find ourselves with Duffy being the first name on the team sheet this time next season so it’s exciting times ahead for the young man, who should get more opportunities with our disappointing attacking showing over recent weeks.
I think there are two sides to Lincoln City at the moment. I’m on the side of believing in Mark Kennedy and the project as are the majority I sense. The other side of it is the more vocal ones of the fanbase, who think something has to change, and I respect that opinion. Anyone has a right to think that after three defeats on the bounce, I completely get it but I think with some context you can think about it as a bigger picture like a lot of people have over the course of the season.
We have a lot to reflect on going into next season, we should be playing League One football with Mark Kennedy in charge but we have seven loan players and all bar one (Virtue) will probably go back with no further interest. We have a number of permanent players who you’d be questioning if they are part of the bigger picture (Sanders, Sorensen, Walsh, Jackson and even Vernam despite arriving in the summer), so it’s going to be interesting and if we can just get it right, I think many people will increase their faith in Mark next season.
We move onto Sheffield Wednesday, and despite having some optimism, I think we might be in for a tough and difficult afternoon.