Match Thread: Lincoln City v Wigan Athletic | Page 10 | Vital Football

Match Thread: Lincoln City v Wigan Athletic

StrangelyBrown said:
Today's outcome has been coming for a few games- performance levels dropped (or rather didn't hit the heights of end of Feb/early March). 16 match unbeaten run is not to be sniffed at and helped create a buzz over the last 2 months and put us where are (now an outside chance of the play-offs) but, to be honest, we lost the opportunity in December with only 1 point in 7 games. The unbeaten run has been excellent but we were two yards behind the starting blocks after December,

It's not over yet but looking much less likely and going into Tuesday against an Oxford side who, in their last 3 games, have found their form.

Half a look to next season and there are some tough decisions for the club- I really like Draper as a person but his physique and mobility mark him out in L1 as out of his depth. I'd be resigned to seeing Sorensen and Bishop leave and Sorensen go back to Millwall. Taylor will not be at Lincoln next season either. Part of our run since Jan has been the fact we have someone who has been able to consistently score goals (something House does not do).

The rebuilt for next season will be interesting - of course it still is in the laps of the gods which league that is in.
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You’re not aloud to say the performance levels have dropped, I got mobbed for saying it during the week.
 
Thought we weren’t too bad today, but came up against a side that didn’t create much but really good in possession. It almost felt we had our wings clipped.

Today and last week in particular it feels like we missed McGrandles & Hamilton, a more pure midfielder. We have been unlucky with injuries no doubt this season, and the bigger squads generally hang in a bit longer (at a cost).

It’s not quite over, nearly but recent weeks has shown what we are capable of.
 
StrangelyBrown said:
Today's outcome has been coming for a few games- performance levels dropped (or rather didn't hit the heights of end of Feb/early March). 16 match unbeaten run is not to be sniffed at and helped create a buzz over the last 2 months and put us where are (now an outside chance of the play-offs) but, to be honest, we lost the opportunity in December with only 1 point in 7 games. The unbeaten run has been excellent but we were two yards behind the starting blocks after December,

It's not over yet but looking much less likely and going into Tuesday against an Oxford side who, in their last 3 games, have found their form.

Half a look to next season and there are some tough decisions for the club- I really like Draper as a person but his physique and mobility mark him out in L1 as out of his depth. I'd be resigned to seeing Sorensen and Bishop leave and Sorensen go back to Millwall. Taylor will not be at Lincoln next season either. Part of our run since Jan has been the fact we have someone who has been able to consistently score goals (something House does not do).

The rebuilt for next season will be interesting - of course it still is in the laps of the gods which league that is in.
Click to expand...

It would be interesting to hear what a Skubala signing looks like. His style lives to press, if we can add a touch of technical quality it could be some season.
 
Players and manager should be proud to get close as they have with the handicap they started with. Go to Oxford have a go and if they don’t win stop off get some pizzas and whatever they like to drink and have a decent trip home. Excited about next year get a bigger pool of players and we will be sorted

Talking of Poole I wonder if we can have him back next season?
 
Red Wimp said:
What did people think of the Oxford player who the ref told to go off on the far side (to the bench) as he was probably only 10 yards away from that touchline but the player pushed the ref out of the way and trudged off the long way (I notice their skipper came over to give him the hurry up).
I wondered if such a blatant disregard for the referee warranted a stronger punishment than a yellow card.
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100% should have been sent off for raising his hands and pushing the referee. The ref was weak and inconsistent all game. Allowed time wasting and play acting. And then to allow the Wigan player to do that to him. Pathetic. No wonder players show an utter lack of sportsmanship half the time if refs are as weak as this.
 
Back home via walking the dog. All good things have to come to and end and so our run did today. Credit to Wigan. They were decent and deserved the win. I thought they played quite similar to how we were last month. They were playing without pressure so players found each other with passes into space and we ended up chasing shadows for much of the game, and when you have a team which looks a little bit tired now, that's never a good thing.
Three key points in the game though I thought which on another day would have resulted in us celebrating a win. Firstly a very early chance we made when Taylor got away on the left with some excellent play. We had a couple of players in good positions but the cross/shot was put in too high rather than one of those hard and low balls which defenders hate as they are just as likely to put it in as they are clear it. So many of our best performances have resulted from an early goal by us and this was an excellent chance for the team to settle.
Second moment was early in the second half. Erhahon, who I don't think had an especially good game today, won the ball and Taylor was ahead of him looking for one of his trademark runs and finish over the keeper. Erhahon delayed the pass, a pass that would have been made a few games ago and Taylor couldn't hold his run. A clear offside and the finish correctly ruled out. It should though have been that much better in that incident.
The third moment is the disallowed goal by Hackett. I'm at that end of the stadium in the Upper bit and that ball was not out of play when Taylor headed it back. Quite how the linesman could flag it as such is a mystery only he can answer.
It was also very clear that we knew that one point today wasn't going to be enough. The Oxford score was known. We had to take that gamble to try and get the three points to keep on their shirt tails. That made the game far more open than many of our recent ones and we ultimately suffered a late sucker punch.
Overall I thought that the exertions of the past few months has caught up with us a little, both physically and probably more noticeably, mentally. A lot of games are won and lost in the head of players. When the pressure mounts, teams start to struggle. You only have to look at the 3 teams at the top of the Championship who all are doing their best not to be promoted despite excellent seasons, how much pressure affects teams. We are seeing that with ours now. It was easy when we were in the chase, playing with freedom associated with that. Now it's a very different kind of game.
So we are still mathematically in with a chance of the play offs but clearly have to win on Tuesday. Oxford are in that kind of groove which will make that difficult.
Anyway I still applauded the team off the pitch at full time. It wasn't just about this 90 minutes, but about the way they have gone about their business since the turn of the year. One defeat doesn't change that. I'll be doing the same at Cheltenham next week and at the last home game (can't get to Oxford for family reasons)
 
andy_imp said:
Thought we weren’t too bad today, but came up against a side that didn’t create much but really good in possession. It almost felt we had our wings clipped.

Today and last week in particular it feels like we missed McGrandles & Hamilton, a more pure midfielder. We have been unlucky with injuries no doubt this season, and the bigger squads generally hang in a bit longer (at a cost).

It’s not quite over, nearly but recent weeks has shown what we are capable of.
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I'd certainly agree McGrandles added something and we have struggled to fill that role since his injury
 
StrangelyBrown said:
I'd certainly agree McGrandles added something and we have struggled to fill that role since his injury
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Results show we've not missed McG or Hamilton up until today.

But via comments & R Lincs on iFollow, either or both were missed today, we lacked their energy and workrate which might have scrapped out a different result.

Bishop however was an even bigger miss?
 
johnolbe said:
I found the sub decisions a bit strange. To sub of Taylor, Hackett, Moylan and House when you’re chasing a goal seemed a bit wierd to me. House was off it mostly and was on a booking so fair enough. Taylor was outr most likely scorer and Hackett and Moylan both have goals in them. We never got a sniff of goal and looked ragged from the time Taylor went off
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Agree today but the changes worked against Leyton Orient and Reading.
 
Chesterimp said:
Results show we've not missed McG or Hamilton up until today.

But via comments & R Lincs on iFollow, either or both were missed today, we lacked their energy and workrate which might have scrapped out a different result.

Bishop however was an even bigger miss?
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There's a leap between results, form and consistency. We really missed McGrandles last week at Reading and against Orient- were it not for O's losing concentration for a second, that would have been a draw.

We have been on an amazing run we've all enjoyed- the last 4 games have helped highlight the areas we still need to improve on to be consistent and compete.

Next season COULD see two of Birmingham,/Wednesday/Huddersfield and Wrenxham/Stockport come up. Next season doesn't get any easier.
 
Wigan bossed the game at the start and we only woke up once they had scored. Lovely shot from Mandroiu to even things up. After that it was pretty even, with us looking just slightly off the pace in decision making and when chasing the second ball.

Having now seen highlights, Taylor’s ‘goals’ were both well offside but pity Erhahon didn’t pass earlier for the second. Enough has been said about the officials, but Wigan are a well organised side and their 600+ fans deserve a mention for being so vocal.
 
Just one of those days, I had a bad feeling we were due one beforehand 🙄 The Ref seemed card happy for us, but let them get away with things too 🤷‍♂️
Hopefully this defeat will re-ignite the players belief to right these wrongs on Tuesday, as Oxford may have peaked too early with their Posh win.
It’ll be a tough ask to make the playoffs now, but it could still go down to the Final Day when anything can happen. UTI 🙏🏼🔴⚪️
 
I think we used up our goal scoring luck in that purple patch of three games, having had the ball in the net three times, hit the bar and a number of shots blocked did have that feeling about it
 
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