First of all many many apologies for not making the Carvery. I did drop Rob a PM but it was probably after he had left. In mitigation Katie was able to finish work at 2.20, so I waited for her before we set off for the game.
For my sins I thought I best write some notes on today’s game,(although I guess there must have been some Karma as I lost my first draft when my computer crashed). I think they call it winning ugly and it’s supposed to be a good sign if you can win when you don’t play well, but I’d be worried if we play like that again before the end of the season. A deserved 3 points against a poor Lincoln side who tried their best to strangle the life out of the game as they appeared to line up in a 4-5-1 formation . We played far too much hoof ball, lacked shape early on and failed to retain possession for long enough, in other words we appeared to stoop to their level.
A hair raising, and barely legal, dash to Plainmoor saw us arrive about 7 minutes into the game (wish it had been the 70th minute in all honesty), just in time to see Carayol sat on his arse and a minute later being substituted. So not much of a return for him.
As soon as we took up our position on the pop side Branston knocked a header back across goal and was unfortunate that it didn’t go in or at least have someone there to tap it in. A goal at the stage would have seen a completely different game I would have thought and for the better.
The first half was pretty dire to be honest, for several reasons;
1. Our players were under par.
2. The pitch was not so good. Bumpy and Bobbly and maybe the grass was a bit too long. It was quite rightly well watered at half time.
3. And the main reason, the referee, who was unbelievably poor. I’m so glad we won or else it would have sounded like sour grapes, however as poor a ref as you will see this season.
The only half chances in the first half fell to Robinson who shot from a narrow angle when a cross was probably a better option and a couple to Zebroski which the keeper saved, one of them rather fortuitously.
About half an hour in and Buckle changed things around, with the very quiet Murray being replaced by Kee, which I felt was tactical as Murray didn’t appear injured, though I could be wrong.
Strangest incident of the first half was when they were given a free kick about a yard from the bye line but their keeper wanting to take it as if it was a goal kick. The ref kept telling him to take it back but he just moved it sideways, even though the ref kept telling him the keeper just took the p1ss. A farcical event that wasted the best part of 2 minutes yet didn’t even warrant a yellow card from the ref even though he dished out a few other dodgy ones.
Their keeper wasted several minutes in the first half just by piss balling around when taking his goal kicks, another thing the ref could have done something about but chose not to. However, he who laughs last and all that saw him running to take the kicks when they went behind.
Half time couldn’t have come quick enough as we questioned why we raced to get to the ground as quick as we could. But missing the first bit and the dire first half paled into insignificance as we switched ends at half time and saw the paramedics surrounding an old gentlemen on the steps. Lets all hope it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it looked.
The start of the second half saw a slight improvement but we were still lumping it forward, playing with no width, not keeping enough possession and we didn’t look that dangerous in attack. Once again credit to Paul Buckle for changing it around again. Around the hour mark he made 2 substitutions within 5 minutes and both made a difference, O’kane for Lathrope who was guilty on several occasions of giving the ball away cheaply and then Stevens for Robinson who was also not having a good game, although I did feel it would have been better to take Tomlin off and stick Robinson up front, however as I said in an earlier post what do I know !!
The substitutions changed the game, within seconds O’Kane intercepted a pass beat a player and got a shot in and then a couple of minutes later went on a mazy run and although his shot was off target at least we started to look more threatening.
Then out of the blue they had a chance at the other end and only a fantastic save from Bevan kept us in the game, still not sure how he managed to keep it out and hope that it is on tonight’s highlights.
A couple of minutes later a sublime through ball, worth the admission alone, saw Zebs through one on one with the keeper who committed himself to coming out of the box, Zebs rounded him and made it look easy as he struck it in from about 10 yards. A very well taken goal and the breakthrough that we needed, and deserved.
Very shortly after Zebs was once again played in behind their defence and struck a sweet shot that had the keeper beaten but struck the inside of the post and rebounded across the goal.
The game was over when another fantastic through ball from Stanley saw Tomlin put through, most will say it was a dummy but to me it looked like the ball got stuck under his feet, however another good finish from him saw us put the game well out of reach.
Now onto the ref. I thought there was supposed to be a campaign for everyone to respect referees more, well this buffoon will have set that back some way as quite honestly I could have lumped him way before half time. I felt as if we were at the game to provide a crowd just for him. Some bizarre decisions and unable to let the game flow at all he seemed to make it all about him. As mentioned by someone else, it was done with a smirk on his face. The booking of Robertson was ridiculous and we can be thankful that he didn’t book Zebs or Branners as that could have impacted the rest of our season.
A below par performance from many, the only notable performances were from Zebs who was rightly named MoM, Stanley who wasn’t far behind him, Bevan for that save alone and Stevens and O’Kane when they came on.
Overall, a fully deserved 3 points against a poor Lincoln side but we didn’t play well for long periods of the game. I would hope for, and expect, a better performance next week against Bradford when you would hope that they would be a bit more attacking seeing as they are at home. We can then exploit them as we play better against sides which play more openly, hence why we have such a good record against the better teams in this division and not such a good record against the lower teams who settle for a draw early doors.
Once again our destination is in our own hands, all we have to do is win all of our remaining games and go up automatically.
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