Mark Kennedy got dismissed by Lincoln City earlier this evening, with Danny Butterfield also leaving the Imps.
For some it was surprise, others not so much, but one thing that can’t be disputed is that it has caused loads of debate. A record of five losses in seven games has stirred some discontent among the fans, yet a there may be more than meets the eye with his dismissal. In recent interviews, Mark appeared to talk differently and following a recent loss to Burton, he singled out and criticised the attitude of Danny Mandroiu, and many will consider that the moment the board think Mark crossed a line.
As fans, we will never know what really happened, but I thought I’d do some further analysis of the events that unfolded this evening.
I think the word ‘surprise’ sums up what lots of people thought when they saw that Mark and Danny had been dismissed by the club. No one expected this news to come and we all thought Mark would be in charge for this weekends fixture against Fleetwood Town – yet there isn’t a massive sense of ‘this is a poor decision’ amongst the fans. We don’t have a board that makes knee jerk reactions to poor results, this isn’t all about football, so I imagine it’s for the greater good of the club.
The main thing I want to look at is the football side of it, as that’s what we see the most as fans. We started the season playing well – good football on display with a clear purpose. The last few weeks though, it’s been tough. An attacking injury crisis has been at the forefront of the issues, but there has been underlying problems for some time, including the good start to the season.
Some stats recently surfaced on Twitter, and it came abundantly clear that something was wrong. The football was really poor in recent weeks and, in my opinion, really negative to watch. Take Saturday as an example, we go down to ten men and Mark’s in game management is really poor. We play the rest of the 90 minutes with a back five, despite trailing by a goal. His second substitution is bringing off a centre-half for another centre-half – doing that at any level is negative. This isn’t me hanging Mark out to dry, it’s a simple explanation of what so many people were thinking walking out the ground on Saturday, and I don’t blame them for thinking that.
Like I said above, our board don’t do knee jerk reactions but Saturday summed up our problems perfectly. Changing to the back-five last season changed our fortunes. We became hard to beat and we got results because of that, but the reason we made the change was down to the ability and the strength of the squad. Last season, we had some incredible defenders. You won’t get a better back three than Regan Poole, Paudie O’Connor and Adam Jackson in this division, so we played to our strengths and adopted a defensive game. This season we’ve got better because of recruitment – Jez George did an excellent job in the summer. Ethan Hamilton and Ethan Erhahon are now our midfield two, that was Max Sanders and Lasse Sorensen (pre wingback change) last season. That’s a major improvement, and the additions of Ali Smith, Reeco Hackett and co have all proved to be positive. Mark got given everything he wanted, but our hopes of a potential playoff place have diminished over the past weeks. Our squad is capable of at least top ten, so we have to beating teams like Burton, Leyton Orient and when you are level at half-time against Peterborough, you have to come out and show some fight in that second half.
Obviously, I have to touch upon the striker crisis. I feel it would be disrespectful to Mark to not mention it, because it hasn’t helped him at all over the past few weeks. Losing Ben House and Tyler Walker was a massive sucker punch towards the end of the transfer window, and with Danny Mandroiu missing a few games too, you have to sympathise with the head coach. However, the underlying stats that surfaced showed there was more to it than a lack of striker. For sure, it had a part to play but I feel as if it was used as a smoke screen.
Like I’ve said this decision probably isn’t all about football. It would be unfair to speculate what has happened behind the scenes, but after hearing Mark’s recent post match interviews I have to feel like something has changed. While I don’t know what has changed, I know one thing, I trust the board to do the right thing for what is best for Lincoln City. Whatever decision comes next will be made with such care, the club is in good hands. We have nothing to worry about at all.
I’ve tried as hard as possible to ensure my analysis of Mark leaving sticks to the football side of his time with the club. We can all speculate what’s gone on behind the scenes, but we’ll never fully know what went on. Something will come out in the coming days looking at the positive aspects of Mark’s time with City to honour him, but for now I want to thank Mark for his hard work at City, and I wish him all the luck in his future endeavours.