I don't know what we're going to get today. In an Ian Evatt world we've shown we can be good, but we're still very capable of being really bad. We've just had a really convincing away win - but we're still firmly in the relegation zone and our last home league game we were utter shit. I'm not approaching games with the cynicism I was feeling in the latter days of Bruce - but I'm nowhere near having the confidence to actively look forward to games. I'm a long way short of skipping up Bloomfield Road full of belief - but at least I'm not shuffling along wondering what the point is.
What will be will be.
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We start like we're making a point. We WILL pass the ball. Everyone will touch it. We look good. This is nice. No sign of the long punt to no one, just passing and moving. We look like we could dominate. We're reborn. We will win 10-0
This lasts for about 90 seconds. We conceded first possession, then a free kick and then a goal. How we concede the goal is quite novel. We simply don't have any defence on the left hand side. When Evo talked about being imaginative with set pieces, I'm not sure this is what he meant. We assume, I think, that Lincoln are going to sling the ball in the box, so we get ourselves all prepared for that - and then when when they instead quickly take it down the line, we're completely caught out - and they have to make astonishingly little effort to get into a shooting position and comprehensively beat BPF.
This is not the start you want. Still, it's come very early and that gives us ages to get back into the game.
That's not how it goes. Lincoln shut us down entirely. It's them who first look like scoring, a snapshot on the turn over the bat and then do score, a ball into the clouds falls to a Lincoln forward, Ihiekwe gets a toe to it, the ball squirts to another one who shoots, a deflection turns it into a looping effort beyond the reach of the keeper and we're 2-0 down.
FFS Pool.
Now we've got the exact problem we've struggled with for years. An organised side who don't need to attack us. We're exceptionally bad in this exact situation.
There then follows a long period of very frustrating football. A man near me offers the idea that "this all shows Evatt - stop fannying about with it, we can't do this passing about from the back shit - he needs to cut it out" - I think about Ian Evatt's career and how unlikely it is that he's going to eschew "fannying about" and decide to say quiet. It's good for people to have some hope I think. Michael Ihiekwe is finding fannying about particularly challenging and we as a whole look static and move the ball slowly. We painfully lack pace up front and anyone to stretch the Lincoln back line. We're limited to a few blocked shots from Bowler. There's quite a lot of arguing between the players. This is not going well.
Thank fuck then for Ashley Fletcher - Imray plays a nice ball curling into the box, Fletcher runs from deep, looks second favourite but gets touch to take it past keeper and defender and then makes sure the keeper takes him out. He's dealt with that brilliantly, taking what wasn't really a convincing chance and turning it into a stone wall penalty. Lee Evans steps up. Smash. The net receives the ball, the Pool are back in the game. On the balance of play, I'm not sure it's particularly deserved - but it certainly was needed
The first half ends with a periods of possession so inert, so unadventurous, that I have to check Ian Evatt isn't Neil Critchley - it's clear that we just want to get into the dressing room and be only a goal down and to rejig things.
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We've been poor. I'm not sure how much it's down to having both Evans and Bowler in midfield - they both want to influence the game as opposed to chasing it down. Can you have two of them doing that. Bowler 2526 wants to pick up loose balls and break - but if there are no loose balls because Evans isn't really going to break up play as Brown or Morgan would then how effective is he?
Ennis would improve the team so much - the one time we've stretched them, it ended with the goal. We've otherwise played in front of them and both Fletcher and Bloxham are dropping to pick up the ball - because that's what both of them do. I genuinely wonder if CJ might be a call to sit on a defenders shoulder. That's how little we've created.
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The call is Andy Lyons. Ihiekwe doesn't reappear. This might improve us as whilst Lyons isn't really a centre back, he's a whole lot more comfortable with the ball and Ihiekwe has found it hard going. Lincoln haven't been pretty to watch but they've been very effective. They've been highly physical and very intense in their high pressing. They've been very organised at the back too - basically, they've rushed us when we've got the ball at the back - but dominated if we've tried to go long - and Ihiekwe has been the point where it's broken down too often.
We're better. I wouldn't say we're anywhere near as good as we would hope to be - but the balance of play isn't so painfully skewed. Despite it sometimes appearing so, Evatt isn't Critchley. He's clearly tasked the central defenders with getting higher up the pitch with the ball. This, I like - I mean, it's risky, yes, but starting the move on the half way line instead of the edge of your own box is advantageous. He's spoken several times about the need to gamble a bit more and we do.
I watch us carefully. It's frustrating that we can't quite find the switch or the right ball. We do still piss about at the back but we're having more success in drawing Lincoln into us - at one point, we pull 8 of their players into the square we're playing in - and Bowler has drifted away - he's free, we just need to see him - Imray is beyond him - we just need to get the ball out and there's one...two passes and we're in - but instead we go back to the keeper because we just can't find the way out.
We make a few chances - a cut back from Fletcher, Honeyman arrives and the ball fizzes low and past the near post. I'm not wholly convinced by Honeyman today. You cannot for a moment question his effort - but aside from running on to that pass, he seems a bit in between things - he's not in the maelstrom disrupting as much as he might be - but he's also not really pulling strings or creating. I look at the numbers after the game and learn that Josh Bowler (yes, really) makes more successful tackles today (and has more key passes, shots and get ready for this... wins more headers!) - Honeyman has the least touches of any of outfield players aside from the forwards. Something isn't quite right with our midfield setup.
We make a raft of subs. The return of players from injury is without doubt giving Evatt more cards to play and to be fair to him, he's willing to play them. Again, unlike Critchley he does seem willing to gamble a bit from the bench. His first change brings Morgan on (hurray, everyone loves Albie and we need him buzzing about being Albie) but he takes off Bowler... hmmm. Honeyman is pushed up and I'm still not convinced that he finds a groove.
He then gradually feeds in more attacking threat. Banks (a player I wish we could find a place for more often) and Taylor (a much needed additional striker) are on. Honeyman is off, Bloxham is off. If Honeyman hasn't quite clicked, Bloxham has struggled - he pulled out one divine cross from a difficult position in the first half but otherwise he's looked like a man who has played a lot of games without much backup.
Taylor is lively. Again I watch the movement - and he's splitting from Fletcher, running away from him in a way that Bloxham wasn't really offering. Banks seems to first go into the hole behind the forwards and then to drift wide - whether this is by design or by instinct I don't know.
We get a chance, Banks in the right wingers role that we don't really play cuts it across, Fletcher at the near post and an unholy collision, the ball away for a corner. We have lots of corners. That makes for an encouraging atmosphere. There's a sense that, Lincoln, for all the muscular, athletic endeavour in the first period are tiring and we're now on top.
One thing I think Ian Evatt is doing very well, is using CJ Hamilton. A cynic might say 'what, you mean, he's not using him very much?' - but no, I don't mean that entirely... I mean, using him in bursts, in an attacking cause. CJ is warming up - Coulson goes down for his monthly injury and limps off. I don't know who CJ was supposed to come on for, but he's on and he's going to play high on the left and try and run back if he needs to.
We've reached the 'glancing at the clock quite frequently' stage now. We've played all our cards. We need something. Scott Banks provides it - the ball ballooning up in the air out wide, Banks spotting something and instead of controlling and moving the ball as seems most likely, he volleys it across goal. Fletcher lashes it, Taylor lashes it. It drops to CJ who (and lets give the man every credit here, because 'brains' and CJ aren't always synonymous in fan discourse) has the calmness and presence of mind to slot it back to Ashley Fletcher who places it exactly where it needs to go... again... the man is having a blinder this season. If he was 5 or 6 years younger, we'd be thinking of the price we could for him...
It's not mayhem - I mean, we've just got the goal we've laboured to against a side who probably haven't spent as much money as we have this year... but it's a very, very satisfying moment. We might not have played amazingly - but perhaps more importantly, we've really stuck at it, we've kept going, we've shown some resilience, some fight, some character - all of those intangibles, all of those cliches are what we've lacked - and today, we've shown some. When you describe a team as 'labouring to an equaliser' it sounds critical - but in the context of this year, I mean it as praise - because effort and will got us there in the end - and that's really not been the case far too often.
There's hope for a winner. Nothing in particular materialises. There's a few moments where it looks like Lincoln might break - but again, nothing in particular materialises.
The whistle goes. The applause is deserved.
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We obviously can't celebrate draws at home all season - because we need to win games - but Lincoln are absolutely the archetype of what we've struggled with. They're very good at what they do and they're in good form. They offer a physical challenge from front to back - they manage to both press high and sit deep and though that cost them (basically, they run like maniacs) in the end, they made it very difficult to play through OR go over them.
I've not mentioned his name above - but I thought Ashworth was really good today - In the second half, he looked the most comfortable in stepping up and disrupting play. He won us the ball, he was willing to risk a tackle and when he tackles, he tackles hard. We have quite a few players who either are slight or not really tacklers and Ashworth has a kind of pleasing bony ruggedness about him as a counterpoint to that. He looks like it hurts if you tangle with him - if Coulson is made of string and cloth, Ashworth is made of concrete and rebar and even though he's not that big, he's got a solidity. Morgan added a similar desire when he came on. Towards the end, he flew up the pitch and launched into a slide tackle on the keeper from a back pass - it didn't come off - but with the lack of Ennis, there's only really Albie you can visualise doing such a thing, making a lost cause into a moment of brief possibility. It is this fight, this physical quality that has to be aligned with ability for us to progress and it's fucking good to see some of it.
Onward
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