The Imps’ returned to Sincil Bank looking to make it three wins in a row after beating Plymouth on Easter Monday away from home.
Mark Kennedy named an unchanged side to the one that beat Plymouth. Carl Rushworth started in between the sticks aided by a back five of Lasse Sorensen, Adam Jackson, Paudie O’Connor, Regan Poole, who captained the side and Harry Boyes, who came into the game in impressive form. Matty Virtue started alongside Ethan Erhahon in midfield, with an unchanged front three of Mide Shodipo, Danny Mandroiu and Ben House.
The first ten minutes had me rather worried, Port Vale showed they are a decent side in a bad place at the moment. Their forward line is good, I’m an admirer of Danny Butterworth up front for them, I think he is a top player as is James Wilson. We all know Matty Taylor is a top player, he was a real coup for them looking from afar, so to put it simply their early period of dominance did worry me. Obviously, they have Tom Pett as well, who I think could do a job for us and he is a seasoned pro at this level now, so while Port Vale are below us, they are a good side and one that will be in League One next season.
We drew first blood though, through Sorensen in the twelfth minute. There was some great play in the build-up, but the ball from Mandroiu was first-class. Shodipo’s dummy was also crucial and the ball found Sorensen, who showed great composure to dink it over the Vale keeper. I’ll say this now, if that goal is scored by Marcus Rashford and assisted by Bruno Fernandes, it would be all over social media for the quality, the goal was top class and it’s another team goal to add to our collection of late, which is ever growing.
We looked in complete control of the game and looked like we would go on to get three points. There were signs though, that this game might turn. Virtue was booked early for a foul, that injured Wilson who was later taken off at half-time and House was getting himself involved with some of the Port Vale players. The game did turn and the referee David Rock delivered the turning point. O’Connor played the ball back to Rushworth, who made an error to cause a heavy touch. Rushworth ended up on the floor with the Vale striker. After looking back at the incident, I think it is a penalty but I think the red card was a massive error. He shouldn’t be sent off if he is looking to play the ball, which in my opinion, he is doing. I think because both players have their hands on each other, it should just be a penalty and a yellow card. Carl hasn’t rugby tackled him to the ground, it isn’t a one-sided challenge so I think the red with it is harsh.
However, the red card made the game the spectacle that it became, so I guess we can thank David Rock for it. The first action after the red card though wasn’t one that had us up celebrating. Port Vale went ahead and at that point in time, it looked hard to see a way back into the game. We don’t score many goals and we were a man down, it was hard for even the most optimistic of fans (that’s you Cornell), to see a way back into this one.
Once again the referee was the centre of attention and we did get ourselves a way back into the game. I still don’t really know what the red card was for, Sky Sports said it was for foul and abusive language, which doesn’t make much sense considering Ben also got booked for the incident. I’ve seen other people saying punch and headbutt, so we don’t really know. The only ones that will know will be the coaching staff that have cameras showing the whole pitch. What we do know is that it got us back into the game and allowed us to go on and get an equaliser.
Just a few minutes after we went up the other end and got our equaliser and it was another great team goal. Regan and Lasse started the move before some smart link up between Mide and Ben saw the ball fall to Mandroiu, who played another excellent ball through on goal to Ben, and the striker made no mistake and tucked home his thirteenth goal of the season to bring us level. That was about it for the first half action and despite the referee engineering much of it, I have to say it was the most I enjoyed a first half at home in quite a while.
The second half was as lively as the first with challenges flying in from both sets of players and an end-to-end match, that saw quite a few chances for both teams. I just felt as if we might come out on the end of a defeat because I didn’t see us scoring more than two. I said to a mate at half-time that there was another red card in this and I was certainly confident that there would be based on the first few actions of the first half, Sammy Robinson’s first act of the game after coming on for Vale was getting booked for a tussle with House, who looked like one bad word against him would have triggered a reaction. Mandroiu was the next one in the book as we looked to press for a winner, I don’t know how many cards you need to be charged by the FA, but we were quickly moving towards that, as were Port Vale.
Matty Taylor, Tom Pett, Danny Butterworth and Paudie all went into the book in the space of five minutes too with Paudie probably lucky to escape with just a yellow, considering the form the referee was on, the centre-half went up to win the header but led with his elbow and like I said that could have easily been shown a red with the way this referee was handing out cards for challenges that weren’t particularly deserving of a booking.
The game was fairly even with level men, but a moment of madness from Robinson saw him booked for the second time and given his marching orders. I think both were bookings so it may have been the first stonewall red card of the afternoon, but it was the third and one that saw Vale down to just nine men. Dylan Duffy was pulling the strings for us on his home debut and he looks seriously dangerous on that left peg.
Duffy produced the moment of magic that we needed, he whipped in a lovely ball from the left-hand side and found Adam Jackson, who headed home in emphatic fashion to give the Imps the lead for the second time in the game. That moment did go on to secure us three points but it wasn’t easy in a game that saw three red cards, five goals and a 2-1 deficit to overturn.
We now have three wins in a row, we are nearly mathematically safe, we have moved above last season’s points total and we have a good core to build on next season. This team can certainly go far, we have something to build on and next season we have top-half potential, so there’s a lot to be excited about. Onto Tuesday night, and hopefully another three points.