Another Day, Another Draw – Imps 1-1 MK Dons

Last night, Lincoln City picked up yet another draw at home to relegation strugglers MK Dons, who struggled to offer anything for the majority of the game.

Mark Kennedy made a few changes to the side that drew with Forest Green on the weekend. Luke Plange came into the team, with Ben House dropping to the bench with I’m guessing a small bit of illness. Danny Mandroiu also returned to the starting eleven in place of Mide Shodipo, rather unfairly I thought. We continued with our lack of defensive numbers as well, with Harry Boyes keeping his place with Sean Roughan once again slotting into the back three alongside Paudie O’Connor and TJ Eyoma. Regan Poole continued in the side as captain too, Ethan Erhahon and Ted Bishop once again lined up as the midfield pairing, with Jack Diamond in attack alongside the changes to the side.

I don’t know why, but the game felt different yesterday. The gate was drastically low, which while I understand it’s a cold Tuesday night in January, I just didn’t expect to drop to 7,000 (and I don’t even think we had that in the stadium). I understand that we draw loads of games but we are on our longest unbeaten run of the season coming up against a side that is struggling. Maybe it’s just me but I expected more.

There was one man in attendance though that deserves a mention and that is Harry Toffolo. Some fans don’t like talking about ex-players and prefer to keep them in the past but I think Toffolo is an exception of that for so many fans, he understood everything about Lincoln City when he was here. He was great with the fans and most importantly, he was a top player. The guy is top class, he came last night (albeit a short journey from Nottingham) on a cold Tuesday evening to watch and support the club, he didn’t have to do that, he doesn’t get anything out of it, he genuinely loves the club and hearing him speak at half-time proved that. For me personally, it was a highlight of the night to see an ex city player that now plays Premier League football come back just to watch, and who knows we might see him back in the future to do more than watch.

Now I’ve finished with my welcome back Toffolo paragraph, I’ll concentrate on the game a bit more! We started the game really well. It was evident in the first few minutes what MK Dons were trying to do and I can see why they are in the situation they are in. I came into the game yesterday thinking to myself, how are MK in this predicament. I hate what they are and what they stand for, but they are a well-run club with a good squad and manager, but they stink of Michael Appleton first season. They play the ball around the back with no real purpose and they can’t mind a meaningful forward ball. They had over 70% of the ball last night, but I can guarantee at least 40% of that was them zipping it around in their own half. I went to the away game at MK and they did it there too, it’s fustratiing I labelled it as anti-football last night when I got back from the game but I think that is slightly unfair but all I know is we should have got ourselves more from the game. I feel we missed House’s pressing presence. Plange did a fairly good job of it on the whole I thought, but there is no one at this level as good as Ben, so it’s a massive shame he wasn’t on in the first thirty or so minutes when we were putting a lot of pressure on their back-line. We did create ourselves a few openings from it though, with Mandroiu and Diamond pressing either side of Plange well. 

We didn’t have to wait long for our first goal of the game, similarly to Saturday. Bishop drove forward in the middle before laying it off to Diamond, who despite having a poor game then onwards managed to find a pass in towards Mandroiu, who hit it first time from the edge of the area into the top right corner of the goal. I saw someone exclaim a few weeks ago that we don’t score any ‘good goals’ and now after a week, we have scored two great goals that will both be up for goal of the season awards come the end of the campaign. The goal put us in the lead and I thought from there on, we’d be relatively comfortable, and we were for the whole of the first half.

MK were poor and I don’t say that lightly, Even at the weekend, even though Forest Green are on paper worse than MK, they had a bit of purpose to them even when we were on top but this MK team in the first half had no idea whatsoever. We pressed them well and we went into the half-time break leading by a goal but there was always that feeling in your mind that we might get pegged back, especially after the same thing happened at the weekend.

Did we get that second goal? No, and we were left battling hard against a team we should have seen off within the first thirty minutes. I think we approached the game right, we let MK have the ball, which is always going to happen as that is their gameplan and we triggered the press in good areas too. The big problem is you can’t press non-stop for ninety minutes, even if your name is Ben House. Football is a game of small margins and if we get that second goal, we win the game no problem and this morning I would be writing positive things about the game, even though the performance was the same. Would we have had the comments about the game plan and the manager etc if Boyes had converted in the second half to double our advantage, I don’t think so. 

I don’t normally come out of the stadium angry but last night I did. It’s so frustrating that we didn’t kill the game off and then we go and concede a poor goal. It was coming, Rushworth made a brilliant save just moments before but to concede a set-piece with a deflection late-on in a game is just a killer for me. We had the chances to be ahead by more though and that is what I keep finding myself going back to, even without re-watching the highlights, I remember that chance that Boyes had, which I don’t know how he missed. Jack Diamond shot from twenty-five yards when he had a clear option to the right to play through on goal and Mandroiu nearly scored another good goal from the edge of the area, but it just brushed the post.

I’m glad I’m writing this article today rather than last night, as I feel I would have been a lot harsher. I wish I was harsher sometimes but I want to look at this with some perspective. We are fourteenth in the league, we don’t look like we are going down and we aren’t going up. We are where we should be, but I can understand the massive frustration from our fans at yet another draw, this weekend we need to up our game and attempt to excite the fans which keep the club going.