Problems... | Vital Football

Problems...

7

79imp

Guest
In no particular order...

1. Frecklington started the season well but has not looked the same since the Crawley sending off, and then the injury at Port Vale. No penetration from midfield (his last goal was September 1st), almost never makes a forward pass, and doesn’t have the game to carry the ball forward (something we have lacked in midfield for donkeys years). He’s a two touch player who looks for the safe pass all the time, so if he’s not scoring goals, why have him in the side?

2. Bolger doesn’t look any better than James Wilson. Maybe he’ll be next season’s Tom Pett, but for now all I see is a slightly lumbering centre back who should not get picked at CB ahead of Bostwick. Don’t know why we’ve unsettled a back 4 who’d done decently enough for more than half the season.

3. Akinde constantly looks isolated on his own up front. Why are we continuing to play one up front when we have good options in the squad in Rhead, Angol and McCartan? We’re top of the league yet hardly ever really take the game to the opposition by having two players up against opposition centre-backs.

4. Pett is not a wide midfield player (see point 1).

Solutions...

1. Bench Frecklington and bring Pett back into the middle with O’Connor ASAP.

2. Bostwick/Shackell has to be our first choice centre back pairing if both fit.

3. Try a more conventional 4-4-2, with Rhead partnering Akinde. Last time it was tried at Cambridge the two combined for the winning goal. Not been seen in tandem from the start of a game since.

4. The other lad on loan from Ipswich looked awful in his ‘cameo’ against Bury and hasn’t been seen since. However, Rowe can play there, and maybe the other lad should be given a runout to see what he can do... at least while Anderson is suspended.

On a happier note, we are 2 points clear with a game in hand (a brilliant position to be in and one which everyone would have been salivating over at the start of the season), but even allowing for a couple of the inevitable late goals that happen over the course of a season, we really could and should be 6 or 8 clear now. If we carry on chucking away winning positions through indiscipline and conceding late goals, the play-offs may well beckon.

Morecambe next week surely a must-win game.
 
I hate to say this, but I agree about Freck. He was a marquee signing twelve months ago but I am struggling to see what he gives us any more. I appreciate our Rate The Player feature is no more than a small cross-section of the total support, but he is currently 15th in the standings and our lowest-ranking midfielder. His automatic place in the side every week appears hard to justify on that evidence, but Danny obviously knows differently and seems intent on playing him.

I also agree about Bolger so far. But the key decision is to move Bostwick into midfield when in my opinion his best position is centre half. If Bostwick is to remain in midfield, it must be Freck who drops out, not O'Connor. Again, Danny knows differently.

Looking at it another way though, perhaps Anderson's stupid red card last week has already cost us four points.
 
Scotimp said:
I hate to say this, but I agree about Freck. He was a marquee signing twelve months ago but I am struggling to see what he gives us any more. I appreciate our Rate The Player feature is no more than a small cross-section of the total support, but he is currently 15th in the standings and our lowest-ranking midfielder. His automatic place in the side every week appears hard to justify on that evidence, but Danny obviously knows differently and seems intent on playing him.

I also agree about Bolger so far. But the key decision is to move Bostwick into midfield when in my opinion his best position is centre half. If Bostwick is to remain in midfield, it must be Freck who drops out, not O'Connor. Again, Danny knows differently.

Looking at it another way though, perhaps Anderson's stupid red card last week has already cost us four points.
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It certainly is a quandary. O'Connor has to be managed as he knee is knackered and keeps having to have injections to allow him to play. Bostwick keeps picking up strains, due the fact he has a knackered lower back. Pett is better against teams who play football and is taken out of the game by the more physical teams.

O'Hara is, like Cliff Thorburn, an unknown quantity.

Why have we signed Angol if we aren't playing him? Rhead hasn't played for three games now. He would have been useful today, especially for game management. He would have been able to slow the game down, by picking up silly free kicks and camping in the corners.

We seem to be looking at The Cowleys in this, however what role does Jez George have in all this? Is he involved in the planning and tactical process too? Whatever is going on, something ain't working. If it ain't working, it needs changing and fixing. True, we haven't gone through a period of games losing six out of seven like MKD, but we've drawn six out of our last eight.
 
Freck worries me too. I don't feel a 'yay' when I see his name on the teamsheet and he's not the most daring of midfielders (imperfectly healed injuries?) - does he need to be rested in order to come back stronger? Having to bring him off early may be unsettling the team plans too.
 
I am sure that the other 23 teams in our league would love to have the problem of being clear at the top with a game in hand and realistically the aim this year is promotion with the league being a bonus.
The way it is panning out it could be as low as 78 points for 3rd place. That's 16 points out of 42 for us as it stands. Plenty to be optimistic about still
 
79imp has always spoken very wisely over the years I have followed his posts both on here and previously on Nathan's website Imps.tk. I think he may well have a few very good points here.

I'd like to see O'Hara given a run in the side and fully agree re Akinde playing up front with Rhead. Bostwick is a much better centre back than he is a midfielder, which means O'Connor must start games, with Pett beside him. That leaves space for just the one wide player, which must be Andrade. Problem is, can O'Hara and Pett be in the same side?

Worth a try?
 
I agree with those pushing for two up front, Akinde and A N Other. Danny would argue that we have three up top with the two wingers, but Akinde is always isolated and needs someone up alongside him. We are top, the best team in the division and yet we never seem to go for the jugular even against inferior teams on home soil. Let the players express themselves a bit more or at least get more attacking players in the side. And less of this game management malarkey.
 
The Imposter said:
I agree with those pushing for two up front, Akinde and A N Other. Danny would argue that we have three up top with the two wingers, but Akinde is always isolated and needs someone up alongside him. We are top, the best team in the division and yet we never seem to go for the jugular even against inferior teams on home soil. Let the players express themselves a bit more or at least get more attacking players in the side. And less of this game management malarkey.
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I hate it when we sit back on a lead. It happened again today when 2-0 up for goodness' sake!
 
I agree with everything 79Imp says. Frecklington is the ‘safest’ player I know but when further forward gets on the end of good attacks(Exeter- was that his last goal!!!)
Bolger was great v Grimsby but his injury seems to be a problem still in that he hardly won any headers against his opponent and was really pushing him at times- on another day he could have given a pen away.
Bostwick is not great at delivering forward balls but at present is def. stronger at CB.
I would have started with O’Connor he seems to be one of our ‘in form’ players. We are having a week between matches so he should cope with at least half a game with his ongoing problem.
When we are at home I cannot understand why Akinde is so isolated - we only saw about 15 minutes of the attacking Lincoln Citywhen we scored the two goals. Why didn’t we continue to press and keep possession and really finish them off? We had far fewer efforts at goal than they did- it is ridiculous. Everyone knows the best form of defence is attack!
Having said all of that it looks like Akinde’s header was over the line in the highlights video. We did get ourselves to 2-0 up and if Macartan hadn’t been so selfish we should have finished off a couple more good moves.
Hopefully at Morecambe next week we can play with a bit more ‘freedom’.
 
I was disappointed today listening to the wireless. I’ll accept all the problems that people want to list on here, in fact I love there problems, top, 2 points clear with a game in hand, 6 points clear of 4thwith the same game in hand, only lost 4 all season, unbeaten in 2019. Remember the-problems we had from 2010 to may 2016? Now they were problems ladies and gentlemen. No money, no fans, no players, no method. If Danny looks at this board, Thanks Danny please bring on more of these problems.
 
HitherImp said:
Freck worries me too. I don't feel a 'yay' when I see his name on the teamsheet and he's not the most daring of midfielders (imperfectly healed injuries?) - does he need to be rested in order to come back stronger? Having to bring him off early may be unsettling the team plans too.
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This is something I've not said for fear of being hounded, so I'm glad others feel the same way. I saw he was nominated for player of the month and thought 'why?'. I just do not understand how O'Connor is behind him in the pecking order.
 
westbanker said:
I was disappointed today listening to the wireless. I’ll accept all the problems that people want to list on here, in fact I love there problems, top, 2 points clear with a game in hand, 6 points clear of 4thwith the same game in hand, only lost 4 all season, unbeaten in 2019. Remember the-problems we had from 2010 to may 2016? Now they were problems ladies and gentlemen. No money, no fans, no players, no method. If Danny looks at this board, Thanks Danny please bring on more of these problems.
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Well I mean that's all fine but football is about momentum and only being as good as your last game. At the moment, Lincoln's results have been lacklustre (and not being beaten doesn't mean much when you're not winning). It's every fan's right to ask about and question what hasn't been going right recently.
 
westbanker said:
I was disappointed today listening to the wireless. I’ll accept all the problems that people want to list on here, in fact I love there problems, top, 2 points clear with a game in hand, 6 points clear of 4thwith the same game in hand, only lost 4 all season, unbeaten in 2019. Remember the-problems we had from 2010 to may 2016? Now they were problems ladies and gentlemen. No money, no fans, no players, no method. If Danny looks at this board, Thanks Danny please bring on more of these problems.
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You are right of course. The problem is unless we win 5-0 every week people think there is something wrong.

If Harry Toffolo had kept his shot a foot or so lower in the last minute, the side would have had character, never say die spirit and winning the league was guaranteed.

Instead I have read, Frecklington does not contribute to the attack enough, we need to play 2 up front, Matt Rhead needs to play with Akinde and we rarely take the game to the opposition and other analysis of our “present problems”.

Obviously we have a problem scoring.

Not sure how this fits with the fact though.


The last time we failed to score. 27 October, 22 games ago.

Then I read “everybody has the right to ask what has not been going right recently.”

I do have the answer for this - not very much

The reason Cowley talks about getting the process right is because he knows the margins between wining and losing are small. Luck, refereeing decisions and circumstances beyond your complete control play a part. But over a period if you keep doing the right things you will get the right results.

In the last 3 games we have played a side in their best form of the season and still got abetter result than FGR and Mansfield despite conceding a dodgy penalty and missing one: we have played 55 minutes with 10 players and we have conceded 2 great long range strikes from a player in the form of his life.

To have that and lose none of those matches should actual indicate little is wrong.

The facts you inconveniently outlined confirm this.

I’m enjoying our success/problems - as you say long may it continue.
 
graemetheexile said:
Well I mean that's all fine but football is about momentum and only being as good as your last game. At the moment, Lincoln's results have been lacklustre (and not being beaten doesn't mean much when you're not winning). It's every fan's right to ask about and question what hasn't been going right recently.
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I agree, I was just putting some perspective to the perceived problems. We can always be better and indeed worse. I know without any shadow of a doubt that DC and the squad will be doing everything from monday morning to be better.
 
Very small margins we could be sat looking at the table with 4 6 8 or 10 pt gap if things had gone Lincolns way alas they didnt . The confidence i feel has dropped but a win next week will restore.
 
sedgleyimp said:
I am sure that the other 23 teams in our league would love to have the problem of being clear at the top with a game in hand and realistically the aim this year is promotion with the league being a bonus.
The way it is panning out it could be as low as 78 points for 3rd place. That's 16 points out of 42 for us as it stands. Plenty to be optimistic about still
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We should be okay then, 13 draws and a win will do it
 
Now I've had a sleep after yesterday's frustrations at SB I'm pleased to see my thoughts on the loco wobble are similar to many others. My thoughts :
- 2 or 3 players are not performing or struggling with injuries
- As good as Chairs 2nd strike was I thought Smith was out of position and just recovering from being clattered, not for the first time in the game.
- We HAVE to play someone else up front with JA when at home and go for the jugular rather than sitting back on a lead.
- we need more pace and a forward looking midfielder, Embleton on loan at Grimsby would be a good fit. We need to see what O'Hara has got too.

BUT we are still top and unbeaten in 2019, there are no easy games in this league so let's keep positive. UTI!!
 
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Chimpimp said:
You are right of course. The problem is unless we win 5-0 every week people think there is something wrong.

If Harry Toffolo had kept his shot a foot or so lower in the last minute, the side would have had character, never say die spirit and winning the league was guaranteed.

Instead I have read, Frecklington does not contribute to the attack enough, we need to play 2 up front, Matt Rhead needs to play with Akinde and we rarely take the game to the opposition and other analysis of our “present problems”.

Obviously we have a problem scoring.

Not sure how this fits with the fact though.


The last time we failed to score. 27 October, 22 games ago.

Then I read “everybody has the right to ask what has not been going right recently.”

I do have the answer for this - not very much

The reason Cowley talks about getting the process right is because he knows the margins between wining and losing are small. Luck, refereeing decisions and circumstances beyond your complete control play a part. But over a period if you keep doing the right things you will get the right results.

In the last 3 games we have played a side in their best form of the season and still got abetter result than FGR and Mansfield despite conceding a dodgy penalty and missing one: we have played 55 minutes with 10 players and we have conceded 2 great long range strikes from a player in the form of his life.

To have that and lose none of those matches should actual indicate little is wrong.

The facts you inconveniently outlined confirm this.

I’m enjoying our success/problems - as you say long may it continue.
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Beat me to it but exactly my feelings- spot on
 
It's good to see that despite all these 'problems', we are still 2 points clear at the top if the league, with a game in hand. That said, a lot of really good points have been made in this thread.

On a more light hearted note, the real answer is that we need 2 Michael Bostwick's...... then we can play one in defence and one in midfield!!!

I do thing we lack legs, pace and energy in midfield and there is often a void between our deep lying midfielders and the front 2. O'Hara was deemed good enough to start 15 games in League 1 at the start of the season before falling out with the fat Scot. He is described as an energetic, box to box midfielder....... which seems to me to be the perfect description of the one player we are lacking, yet we have seen virtually nothing of him.

Maybe that will change next week?
 
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