Match Thread: Lincoln City v Accrington Stanley | Page 13 | Vital Football

Match Thread: Lincoln City v Accrington Stanley

I'm working Alexandria, Egypt at the minute. I made sure we'd finished what we needed to do and we were back in the office by 4pm my time for kickoff. I watched most in the office and saw the final half hour on my phone in the bus on the way back to the hotel.

I thought that was a very good, solid performance. It's hard to gauge at this stage of the season, as some teams may hit the ground running and others not so. We'll face better opposition but I think Accrington may fall into the latter category.

I don't think for one minute that Accrington will be as ineffective for the rest of the season as they were today. We did well to nullify them. They still always posed a threat, and I suspect that even when we're looking dominant, the counter attacking threat of opposition will be much greater this season, and we will be caught out by it at some point.

All of the new players looked fantastic. Certainly a step up and our midfield looks like a new beast. It is testament to a good performance that there are so many candidates for man of the match. I'd opt for O'Connor. A very experienced head just doing what O'Connor does. I'll admit, I wasn't sure he'd have as much impact when paired in league one, but I'm pleased he's already proved me wrong. An even greater performance given his lack of preseason.

Bostwick fantastic as ever. I don't think it matters what league he plays in. He'll still do his job as good as he does. Bolger had a couple of wobbles but understandable given his illness, but he still had a good game.

To be able to leave out Akinde and Andrade is incredible. I imagine most of us would have had both of them nailed on to start. We could have easily had a few more today, but I'm not greedy. Two goals and a clean sheet in our first league one appearance for twenty years. I'm happy
 
Stagsnet - oh dear

Walker and Grant had good games today

They are decent players

Flitcroft is not a good manager and Mansfield is not a nice environment to play football in!
 
As good a start as you will get when you move up a division.

Felt we deserved to win by two goals. Although could have easily been 3 1 or 4 2, both keepers made some very good saves. Any doubts over Vickers hopefully addressed.

DC clearly identified that whilst we were very solid last season we didn't create as much as you would expect a team who won the league to. This hasn't just been addressed, but looks to have been addressed superbly. Front 4 played some great football with midfield two and full backs joining in as well when they could. All new signings very impressive. Payne and Morrell especially, both absolute livewires. Grant is seriously skilful, think we will see a lot of magic from him this season. Walkers movement was excellent - says a lot that he enjoyed some good link up at times with all 3 of Grant, Payne and Anderson - this was largely due to running the right channels effectively. Excited to see what this brings when they have trained together more. Be interested to see what would have been said if Akinde had missed chances Walker had... But agree with DC - just happy to see Walker getting in right places, keeps doing that and goals will definitely come. Two Michaels - Bossie and O'Connor - led superbly as seniors in the team. All the team played pretty well.

Only below par performance for me was Toffolo. Daft yellow early on and lucky to escape a penalty shout in about the 92nd min. Know he is better than that, perhaps just first game over zest, really like Toffolo so no doubt back to his best soon.

Notice Scunny lost 2 0 at home. Perhaps a few supporters who were worried after they beat us might calm down a little. Honestly, don't ever read anything into preseason! Always look where we are after 6 games, today was a great start, be amazing if we are in a similar position in 5 games time.
 
Gaz_Imp said:
Only below par performance for me was Toffolo. Daft yellow early on and lucky to escape a penalty shout in about the 92nd min.
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I agree the yellow was a rash challenge, but I was really impressed with the rest of his defending. I particularly remember a great cross from the left which had two Accrington players queueing up on the back post to bury it. Only perfect positioning allowed Toffolo to get his head on the ball at the expense of a corner.

Good times when that could be considered the worst performance.
 
Not just the result today, but the manner in which we achieved it. The team were buzzing. Lovely crisp passing and control. I really enjoyed the game.
I thought Accrington played well at times and caused us some problems and Vickers had to be on form today, and he was.
Bolger dominated in the air. The midfield - lots of movement, good to see.
 
Chesterimp said:
I remember Cockerill's goal that day as cutting in from the left wing and curling into the top corner from the angle of the box, put us ahead but a very good Huddersfield came back to win 2-1 to loosen the wheelnuts a little more.
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Can't say as I remember either goal, but Maurice Burton was there for the Echo:

City 1 Huddersfield 2 - "It was sheer persistence by Glenn Cockerill which produced the goal. He followed up a high lob of the kind Marshall Burke has made a speciality, and as Hanvey was caught on the turn the opportunity presented itself. A vicious first time shot left Cox helpless and though it at first appeared to be passing over the bar, it suddenly dipped in flight and Cockerill's ninth goal of the season was in the bag".

City 2 Brentford 1 - "He shook off a crude and obviously illegal tackle from McNichol, who he tormented to distraction, and then raced half the length of the field before placing a low shot past Paddy Roche into the net".
 
Chimpimp said:
I agree the yellow was a rash challenge, but I was really impressed with the rest of his defending. I particularly remember a great cross from the left which had two Accrington players queueing up on the back post to bury it. Only perfect positioning allowed Toffolo to get his head on the ball at the expense of a corner.

Good times when that could be considered the worst performance.
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Yeah there were two occasions when he won it well in the box to be fair to him, perhaps below par bit harsh. Was lucky with pen shout though late on from where I was sat, pushed their player in the back, think they make a bigger deal of it if that happens earlier on.
 
Merthyr Imp said:
Can't say as I remember either goal, but Maurice Burton was there for the Echo:

City 1 Huddersfield 2 - "It was sheer persistence by Glenn Cockerill which produced the goal. He followed up a high lob of the kind Marshall Burke has made a speciality, and as Hanvey was caught on the turn the opportunity presented itself. A vicious first time shot left Cox helpless and though it at first appeared to be passing over the bar, it suddenly dipped in flight and Cockerill's ninth goal of the season was in the bag".

City 2 Brentford 1 - "He shook off a crude and obviously illegal tackle from McNichol, who he tormented to distraction, and then raced half the length of the field before placing a low shot past Paddy Roche into the net".
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I remember the huddersfiel goal as a thing of beauty. Trust though that after the defeat we lost our way that season
 
Honestly, don't ever read anything into preseason! Always look where we are after 6 games, today was a great start, be amazing if we are in a similar position in 5 games time.[/QUOTE]

I agree. We definitely need to secure our position in one of those top two automatic slots.
 
Luke Imp said:
Bar a free header in the first half, I thought that was a comfortable afternoon and probably should have had 3 or 4.

Accrington were missing Billy Kee (who we send our best wishes to whilst he's out again sorting his mental issues) but I'm not sure he'd have made too much difference because we snuffed most things out before they got to our 18 yard box. They played some quick one touch passing at times but it looked nice without really getting anywhere.

As for us, some great football played whilst still retaining that bit of steel through the side. Despite being small in stature, Payne and Morrell get stuck in and O'Connor showed us that he'll still be important this season. If we can find someone similar to him to compliment the other CM's (O'Hara?) then we need to get it done.

I'm going to call Morrell as up there for Player of the Season already. You don't need to many views of a player who's clearly very good to make your mind up. Reminded me a little of Dean Keates. Short, but packs a punch. Always available, appreciation of passing options was exceptional and had the pressing of Woodyard.

Two big, noticeable things from today were 1) the amount of dribbles in the game from CM's because that's not really something we've done or had and 2) the amount of forward passing, trying to find attackers early. Not too much sideways stuff today.

Morrell was MOTM for me, but I thought Walker and Grant had solid debuts. Bossie, O'Connor and Bolger did well considering their issues and everyone else put in good shifts.
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At last, somebody who agrees with me. He's a little terrier, snapping at opposition players' heels, crisp, incisive passing and seems to have a good engine. I would say an upgrade on Woodyard, if anything, with his go forward attitude. He was my MOTM too.
 
Entertaining game, we played some good stuff. Difficult to know how good we are, think Accrington may struggle, but we will see after 10 games ish. Best I've seen Bolger play and he was sick pre game.
 
impsimps said:
Entertaining game, we played some good stuff. Difficult to know how good we are, think Accrington may struggle, but we will see after 10 games ish. Best I've seen Bolger play and he was sick pre game.
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If we want to be top half then we really should be beating sides like Accrington at home. All that said though I thought we looked lively, full of ideas and movement and really could have had it sewn up by half time but for their keeper. Payne was my MotM. His quality on the ball in a packed midfield sometimes surrounded by 3 Accrington players was superb but the general movement off the ball around the box was excellent and some super little balls inside the box to unlock them was very encouraging.

Thought Accrington were tidy and neat when they got to our box but not really going to shred us.

Oh and Vickers was excellent.
 
A quite superb performance today across the park. Did you see some of those passes from a Lincoln team too!

Forest must have a fabulous side if they feel able to let us have Walker and Grant.

Payne and Morrell were excellent too.

I know today was the first day of the season and we have a tiny squad, and injuries will happen etc etc. However, Accrington were 14th last season, the Cowleys have once more performed miracles by signing these four excellent players and we looked a really good team today who could easily have scored four or even five goals.

At 2.30 today, I thought midtable would be a great achievement, and still think it would. However, if Lincoln can play like that for the rest of the season, then top six here we come!!

We will find out more about the side next week when we travel to Rotherham. It looks to me that we have had a serious upgrade though.

I also love it that the rest of the country will watch the goals tonight and just say "typical Lincoln goals - another corner and a penalty" Blah! Blah! Blah!

Those two highlights are so far from the truth of the match but lets keep the rest of the country thinking the same rubbish about us, as they have done for the last three years, and lets keep proving them wrong.

We are so lucky to have the Cowleys and this great team. Lets enjoy the ride, as I feel this is going to be a memorable season.

Portsmouth and Peterborough lost and Sunderland drew at home today by the way!

UTI
 
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