The Imps suffered a three goal defeat this afternoon to Bolton Wanderers, with the home side outclassing Mark Kennedy’s City.
The build up to the season opener was full of optimism for City, and it’s clear to see why. A good end to the 22/23 campaign, coupled together with some really exciting additions over pre-season is certainly reason for excitement and unfortunately we fell short today and got punished by a top quality side.
Lukas Jensen started in goal, with a back three of TJ Eyoma, Adam Jackson and Paudie O’Connor in front of him. Sean Roughan started as the left wing-back, with Jaden Brown out injured while Lasse Sorensen lined up on the other side. New signing Ethan Hamilton made his debut for the club alongside Ethan Erhahon, while there was a shock in the attack with Tyler Walker making his second debut for the club alongside Danny Mandroiu and Ben House.
While the first eleven looked good and was fairly strong, the bench was the opposite. I know we have injuries, but we need some more squad depth because we lacked options today and that was evident in the final 30 minutes of the game. Oisin Gallagher and Jovon Makama are clearly talented young players, but we need stronger options. Jay Benn also made the subs, and he’s another one that I expect to not be on our bench when the transfer window finishes. That left our only real game changing options as Ali Smith, Reeco Hackett and Dylan Duffy, it’s a good start but we need more to lean on late in games.
Almost all the hopes of getting the season to the best start possible went within the first few minutes. We couldn’t get a touch on the ball and Bolton were passing the ball around with some real conviction. They pushed forward early and were looking to get a real foot hold in the game. Ian Evatt’s side did manage to get an all important early goal from a corner. I’m not going to blame the officials, but I do think it wasn’t a corner in the first place, however that is no excuse to not defend the following set piece. It’s a really weak goal to concede and that can’t become a habit.
I think once we got into our groove around the 15th minute mark, we looked like we were in the game. We weren’t creating loads of chances, but there was a few of note. Ben showed some good skill to get to the edge of the area but his low shot went wide of the near post. Lasse had a half decent chance after bursting down the right, while there were a few more moments where you thought we’d might create an opening but the move just broke down, with a lack of final pass etc. One of the limited positives to come from the opening period was Hamilton having a good debut outing in the midfield, he looks like a really good addition from the first impressions and I think he’ll be an excellent player for this football club.
Walker had limited opportunities on the ball in the first half, but he made some good runs despite being fairly isolated for most of the first period. We didn’t have much of a threat down the left side, that will be mostly down to Brown being out injured, but we need another body to challenge him as a natural wing-back because today Roughan did not offer enough of a threat going forward and we really need him to be a consistent member of our back three.
We went into half time one goal down, but at that point I felt we were doing alright and we had a chance of getting a goal, potentially getting ourselves a point. The unfortunate thing for us was we conceded after five minutes to a team that will be in the top six this season, so it was probably the worst thing that could’ve happened.
Walker came off at half-time and was replaced by Hackett, which was no surprise really. Walker is still building up his match fitness, and it seems Hackett has been nursing an injury through the last few games, so to get them both 45 minutes is a positive. We came out for the second half on the front foot and for the first ten minutes we were looking to get some control on the game. Unfortunately we weren’t really given the chance to cause Bolton problems going into the last 30 minutes as the home side added their second of the afternoon in the 59th minute.
It was another corner and another free header for a Bolton man. Victor Adeboyejo headed past Jensen and the game was pretty much over as a contest for the Imps. Bolton controlled the game from that point onwards and put in a very professional last 30 minutes, and even added a goal for good measure. The third came from poor defending and getting caught in possession up field, that left Jacko with three players to mark and although he was having a good game, he was never going to stop that and Paudie turned the ball into his own net trying to block the cross. There’s nothing more Paudie could have done, if he doesn’t block it Bolton score anyway, so we can’t really blame him there, even if it does go down in the record books as his mistake.
There was another debut late on, with Smith replacing Hamilton in the middle of the park. The latter can be very proud of his performance and like I’ve already said if he carries on doing what he did today, he’ll soon be a fan favourite at Sincil Bank.
Unfortunately, in the face of a robust and a street-smart opponent, we were overpowered and that situation was further worsened by conceding a goal within the opening 4 minutes, in front of a crowd exceeding 20,000, with almost 1,000 supporters travelling from Lincoln.
Looking at Bolton, their defensive prowess and threat from set-piece situations alongside their good possession game, will see them in the top six and most likely higher this season. They were street-smart too as whenever we gained possession, Bolton’s response often involved tactically committing fouls, and slowing the game down. They were too strong for us today, but we’ll bounce back.
We move onto Notts County on Tuesday night!