What do i not see? | Vital Football

What do i not see?

Casperimp

Casperimp

Vital 1st Team Regular
I have been watching Lincoln City home and away for the best part of 40 years. I am not a football expert or claim to be knowledgeable about tactics or players attributes i just go to enjoy it and support my hometown club. However I know what I watch and I know how I feel about the team.

For me we have a young and potentially exciting team with bags of potential and some of our own home produced talent starting to show real promise in numbers I have never seen in my lifetime. The football standard and athletic of the players is some of the consistently highest I have seen having mostly watched us perform at League 2 or National League level. We are getting points from clubs with large fan bases and storied history. As a club we are unrecognisable from the Lincoln City I have watched for most of my supporting years.

However I have a friend and I know he is not alone who seems to want to constantly play down or see the negative. In reaction to yesterday and our 3 points away at Ipswich his reaction was that we were awful in the first half ( to which I agree) but getting points of our last 2 opponents shows how poor quality this League is. He also thinks the youth team is a waste of time and money that should be put into the first team and we should be getting young PL cast offs.

I know football is about opinions but I like to see the positives and appreciate where we are right now not constantly look for down playing or seeing the negative in everything.

It's his choice but for me we have a lot to be appreciative of and enjoy right now and under MK we really seem to be moving in the right direction. I just don't see we are a poor quality squad in a poor League in fact I see completely the opposite.
 
Hi Caspar - two things (in my opinion). A lot of these fans were sat at home supporting Premier League teams up until 2017, so expectations are that they go to be ‘entertained’ regardless of opposition/level. Also, typical small-minded Lincoln attitudes see the negative in everything. Booing Eyoma yesterday was particularly depressing.

Anyway, leave with a positive or I sound slightly hypocritical - I agree with you, I’m excited to see how Kennedy and this young team develop over the season.
 
I would say I am more in your camp than your friends. The youth development debate is exactly that with arguments for and against. However I would make the case that firstly we are no longer paying lip service to that aspect of the club and are now 2 or 3 years into a serious revamp and secondly it takes more than several years before it can reasonably be expected to see any real benefits emerging.
That we had several youngsters involved and beating Newcastle U23s was brilliant as somebody pointed out on another thread. Starting to see some of them appear in league squads is highly pertinent. The standard required at L1 is very high and there will be attrition, but to have so many with potential is for me a very exciting feature of the directuon we are taking and really should aspire to in order to compete with all the 'names' we find ourselves up against at the level.
 
I have never been to the opera but if I had been I would have had no idea if I was listening to Dave from the local opera society or Pavarotti. Although many around me might have.

I think your friend is like me at the opera.

Those with a bit more understanding will appreciate the great strides Lincoln have made in recent years.

If you can, you have to see yourself as fortunate that you do.

You will be enjoying the best football on display at Sincil Bank for decades.

...and as has also been said, the promise of things improving still. To see Draper, Ahui, Gallagher and Roughan on Tuesday night gives me that hope.
 
The players we have will always be dictated by the size of the budget, and I think we are using it well. It always amuses me when I see supporters of the big clubs refer to Lincoln as being rubbish, crap and far worse - just have a quick flick through Owlstalk from yesterday for all the evidence you need. However, it is interesting to see a club with over £50 million pounds' worth of debt paying Barry Bannan an alleged £27,000 per week; I would suggest some of our younger professionals do not earn that in a year. It would be nice if opposing supporters would occasionally appreciate how well some of the smaller clubs are doing on a small percentage of the budget enjoyed by their own.

There will always be questions over how well we are using that budget, though. For example, I would like to see us sign an experienced goalkeeper in preference to U23 prospects, but what about David Stockdale yesterday? Fumbled a relatively straightforward shot from House in the first half and went down in very slow instalments for Mandroiu's equaliser, so perhaps our current practice is the right one.
 
Its very much a Lincoln thing, where the glass is always half empty rather than half full.

I remember even during Taylor's record breaking 75/76 season some fans were still moaning and looking for any excuse to run the team down. Fans were very fickle at that time, having gone through most of the 60s with a truly dire team and badly run club.

Its nowhere near as bad now as the majority of the fans are a new breed, rather than old timers like me. But there will always be an element who like to moan, however well we are doing. Its the Lincoln way.
 
Very early doors with the revamped academy and will take time
Got to remember from each age group you maybe have 1 or 2 potential pros from each year the rest make up the numbers . Still cheaper im sure then paying 20/30 k a week to new players
Plus the football league fund a fair part of the academy i think
Plus you have the potential to sell
 
Ainsworth7 said:
Hi Caspar - two things (in my opinion). A lot of these fans were sat at home supporting Premier League teams up until 2017, so expectations are that they go to be ‘entertained’ regardless of opposition/level. Also, typical small-minded Lincoln attitudes see the negative in everything. Booing Eyoma yesterday was particularly depressing.

Anyway, leave with a positive or I sound slightly hypocritical - I agree with you, I’m excited to see how Kennedy and this young team develop over the season.
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I don’t think it was booing. I think it was a collective shout of NO! because he was well in the Sheffield half with no one anywhere near him and he chose to pass it back to the goalkeeper.
 
mikeosullivan said:
Its very much a Lincoln thing, where the glass is always half empty rather than half full.

I remember even during Taylor's record breaking 75/76 season some fans were still moaning and looking for any excuse to run the team down. Fans were very fickle at that time, having gone through most of the 60s with a truly dire team and badly run club.

Its nowhere near as bad now as the majority of the fans are a new breed, rather than old timers like me. But there will always be an element who like to moan, however well we are doing. Its the Lincoln way.
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It’s not just Lincoln believe me, there’s an element like that at most clubs
 
Bolton, Charlton, Ipswich, Newcastle Kids, Sheff Wednesday - goals conceded : 3 - Goals created by opposition : 0 - goals gifted by us : 3 - IF only!!

Eliminate the silly mistakes and keep things as tight as that and we're going to be more than OK at the end of this season

I'm starting to draw the conclusion that we might not be doomed
 
We have a plan and a purpose. Do not normally have a programme but read a article by the fitness chap we recruited from Rotherham and you realise the path we are on. Amazing how everything is planned for training, pre match and post match. The chap recruited to be head of academy is more of a Chief Executive to bring everyone together. The youth players are making very quick progress. To think where we have come from since non league is quite remarkable.
 
We're now an established league 1 club on merit, and I'm very happy with that. It's been a long time since we've held our own at this level for a prolonged period of time.

OK we don't necessarily have the best players in the league (we can't afford them), but we do have very good players who are improving all the time and most importantly gelling as a team. I reckon if we allow this squad to settle with minimal changes each transfer window, then I can see us flirting with the championship. I think stability is key at this point.

If you trawl through the "who are ya" Q&A's so far this season, nearly every contributing fan regards us as "a well run club" - even those who look down on us as the little guy!

These are good times aren't they? What's not to like?
 
I am more than happy with where we are position wise. Its great to see the young lads being given a chance. As a team we have become resilient but a lot of of our play when we have the ball is poor. IMO we dont keep the ball well enough, we lack composure and its difficult to see a style/pattern to our play. The second half yesterday was a lot better but I think that was because Virtue and Sanders seemed to get on the ball a lot more to feed the front players rather than it coming from hopeful balls from the back. TJ has struggled on occasions this season for whateve reason. He seems to be trying hard but the energy levels just dont seem to be there. He doesn't give up but I think MK needs another option in this area to give TJ a break. In short we are in a good position, there are a lot of positives on the pitch from indivuals however our play when we have the ball has alot of room for improement.
 
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nrimp said:
I don’t think it was booing. I think it was a collective shout of NO! because he was well in the Sheffield half with no one anywhere near him and he chose to pass it back to the goalkeeper.
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I was watching on ifollow and I shouted NO too! An aimless ball into a loaded box much better than a pass back to the gk and an aimless ball into midfield.
 
Playing football is so easy from the stands. TJ played the percentage pass in that instance yesterday. Great if he managed to hook it forward and we get a chance, but he could easily have shinned it leaving the Wednesday attacker who was breathing down his neck with a free run on our goal. I always remember being told to play the way you are facing. Not an issue for me
 
Norfolk Imp said:
Derby 2-0
Charlton 0-0
Ipswich 1-0
Sheff Weds 1-1

All the above within the last month or so, who’d have thought that a few years ago (or decades come to think of it?) Not in my lifetime, or anyone else’s I suspect?

Salad days.
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Very good point Norfolk and that’s a set of results beyond our wildest dreams only a few years ago.

Here are 4 results from Sept/Oct 2015 so anyone can compare and contrast

Barrow 1 Imps 0
Imps 1 Altrincham 1
Welling 2 Imps 1
Imps 0 Bromley 1

then of course Whyteleafe 5 Imps 3 soon after
 
60sIMP said:
Very good point Norfolk and that’s a set of results beyond our wildest dreams only a few years ago.

Here are 4 results from Sept/Oct 2015 so anyone can compare and contrast

Barrow 1 Imps 0
Imps 1 Altrincham 1
Welling 2 Imps 1
Imps 0 Bromley 1

then of course Whyteleafe 5 Imps 3 soon after
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Shudder!!
 
60sIMP said:
Very good point Norfolk and that’s a set of results beyond our wildest dreams only a few years ago.

Here are 4 results from Sept/Oct 2015 so anyone can compare and contrast

Barrow 1 Imps 0
Imps 1 Altrincham 1
Welling 2 Imps 1
Imps 0 Bromley 1

then of course Whyteleafe 5 Imps 3 soon after
Click to expand...
Whitehawk. Don't forget that they made the National League South play-offs that season - just one division below us - and were massively bankrolled at the time. The money then dried up, and they have sunk back down the pyramid: only just avoided relegation to the Southern Counties East League last season.
 
nrimp said:
I don’t think it was booing. I think it was a collective shout of NO! because he was well in the Sheffield half with no one anywhere near him and he chose to pass it back to the goalkeeper.
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It was booing, certainly from behind where I was sat. Not good and a fair few around me, said so. As has been said, TJ had the option of hooking a hurried ball into the box but took the sensible option of playing it back.
 
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