Match Thread: Crewe Alexandra v Lincoln City | Page 16 | Vital Football

Match Thread: Crewe Alexandra v Lincoln City

They out-Lincolned us!!!! Pressed hard for 90+ mins, battled for every ball, moved the ball well and scored two hard fought goals. Mnd you, I also thought the ref was shocking. Hardly gave us anything at all and penalised us for almost every physical challenge. I actually think he would have sent at least one of us off if we had battled as hard as Crewe. Hey ho - we move on to Saturday, but from what DC said after the game we could have three or four injuries.

Nah, I thought the ref was fine. He was pretty lenient with Akinde until he eventually booked him for something fairly innocuous, but it was an accumulation of offences.

Actually, I thought Akinde was one player who did OK. The rare times we got anywhere near the danger area in the first half was exclusively down to him on his own.
 
Lots of strange results today. In League Two, Lincoln lost at Crewe, one of the best defences in the division conceded six at Carlisle, MKD got stuffed by Cheltenham, Colchester lost at home to Stevenage, Newport were thrashed at home again, and big-spending Notts County...slipped to the bottom of the league. I would suggest there are several promotion hopefuls feeling worse than us.

In League One, Portsmouth lost at Gillingham, Walsall lost at home to Bristol Rovers, Charlton lost to Coventry, and even AFC Wimbledon won a match.

In the National League, Orient lost to Dagenham, Halifax won at Harrogate and Matt Green inspired Salford to a 5-1 defeat at Wrexham.

Boxing Day football personified.
 
Two years ago we lost at Guiseley on boxing day to put a dent in our lead at the top of the National League. Today we've lost but marginally improved our gd and maintained a 4 point lead in League 2.

Both disappointing days but an indication of our progress. But the squad's depth is being tested in these last few days before the transfer window opens.
Technically only one game before the window opens now.
3/4 changes in both directions I reckon between now and January 31st
 
It is not the defeat as much as the manner of the defeat and the quality of the performance. Occasionally it has happened in part of a game, and often it has been sorted at half time. First time in ages that it has happened for the full 90.
I doubt the team got much of the process right today. Feel a bit for those that travelled to watch.
Makes Cambridge even more interesting, looking forward to it.

Colchester was worse than that. At least a couple of decent chances were created today. But it was what it was and you have to forget about it.

If you want to take a positive from it, being so outplayed still only resulted in a one goal defeat.

We don't keep many clean sheets though. We only have 5. MK Dons have 11 and Mansfield and Colchester have 10 each. Even Port Vale have 9 and Grimsby 8.
 
Danny has said in the past that you learn more in defeat and I’m sure he’ll know where improvements can be made in preparation, process and areas to strengthen in the transfer window
I’m sure this will be a valuable lesson to our greatest manager to be
 
Just back a bad day at the office we never got started and Crewe thoroughly deserved to ŵin we were over run in midfield and looked shaky at the back and in truth their goalie did not have a lot of saves to make.
 
Let's look for positives from.today:

Still 4 points clear after results elsewhere were very favourable.

Good job we can say that, as there were no other positives whatsoever. We were abject from start to finish and whoever thinks that was better than Colchester needs their eyes testing.

Bigger concern is the major risks taken with players who clearly weren't properly fit. Obvious Vickers wasn't fit within 10 minutes of kick-off.

That said we have performed poorly on Boxing Day before and bounced back, so let's see what happens at Cambridge.
 
Let's look for positives from.today:

We were abject from start to finish and whoever thinks that was better than Colchester needs their eyes testing.

That would be me. Actually thanks for reminding me, I do need to go for an eye test.

Both were very poor performances, it's difficult to gauge them. However there was a tiny bit of football played by the Imps today. There was none at Colchester where the whole game was kind of the antidote to football. At least Crewe played well.
 
well, we're still top but we've been lucky with a lot of the other results imho. I remember when we had that little bad spell, the other teams in the top 1/4 of the table also had bad results. Like today with MK Dons losing their game. Everyone has bad days, just need to bounce back.
 
Spoiler alert: this won't make for good reading. Lincoln weren't very good.

Today, was in all honesty a shambles. One of the most frustrating games I've witnessed under the Cowleys. The first half was the most one sided affairs under the Cowleys I've seen since the second half against Arsenal. Partly because we were terrible, but also because of how good Crewe were going forward. They didn't look great in defence, unfortunately we rarely threatened.

Crewe wanted it so much more than us and were full of running. They looked fit, won all the second balls and constantly found large pockets of space. In contrast, we were sluggish and players were shying away from the battle. Our midfield was none existent, overwhelmed through out and seemed to spend the game running through treacle. They pressed us high up the pitch and we couldn't cope. It resulted in us lumping the ball forward to Akinde, who had no support. I thought the big man did fairly well considering the awful service he was provided. Yet remarkably we went in at half time at 0 0 mainly due to some decent last ditch defending.

Making it to second half, the fans were thinkig
the Cowleys will give them a good talking to and make some tweaks. What ever plan we had went out the window when we conceeded a goal 2 minutes into the second half. Personally thought Botswick (?) was being held, and the header seemed to bamboozle Vickers who let the ball drop in. We can't complain though Crewe hugely deserved it.

Second half continued to be an absolute shit storm conducted by the man in the middle, who seemed to have little knowledge of how football was played. His series of questionable decisions confused both sets of fans and set up a pantomime for the second half. For their second goal our team seem to part like the black sea for moses and allow their man to run through. Eventually a shot was half blocked and found its way in the corner. Vickers complained to the linesmen, not sure why unless their player tapped it in at the back post.

Despite being in complete control Crewe looked to start bottling it when we scored late from a rare good move from Lincoln. However, they masterfully took 4 minutes out of the game using gamesmenship. No complaints though the best team won. Throughout the second half I was thinking green could have been useful here. Critical transfer window coming up where we must strengthen. Just to add insult to injury, my man of the match, Vickers still seems to be struggling with injury. Can't see the Cowleys ever giving a team the Christmas off again after that performance.

Very few positives to pull out of that other than both MK Dons and Colchester losing meaning we will be top in the new year. I guess we can can put this down as a bad day, or maybe try and sell it as the kick up the rear we needed. Sigh. Where is my beer?
 
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Disappointing result but let's put it behind us and move on. Next match after a defeat is usually a win so let's put this right at Cambridge

Four points clear on top at the halfway point. Would have taken that last August
 
A worrying display. Yes, every team has an off day, but any opposing manager who has watched our recent performances will know that to beat us they need to press high up the field and outnumber us in midfield.

We are a little fortunate that it is not a good quality division this year - there is no outstanding team like Luton. We should still end the season in the top three, but to win it we will need two or three quality additions in January.