Following Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at home against Doncaster Rovers in League One, I asked the Vital Lincoln City members what three things they learned from the match.
You can discuss what has been said in this article HERE, as well as many other topics on our 100% Imps forum! We have also published a Lincoln City v Doncaster Rovers Quiz, which can be found just below the first three things. Every page view helps raise money for Lincoln City Football Club!
Here’s what NottyImp said:
1. Our corners appear to be made out of odds-and-ends of rubbish found at the local council tip. They’re the footballing equivalent of the kind of cobbled-together shed you see on municipal allotments: bits of plywood with old double-glazing all nailed together rather haphazardly with a leaky tin roof. They really need to be a lot better.
2. We are the equal of any team in this division. Today, Donny didn’t outplay us, we outplayed ourselves. We will play a lot worse and win. But they are one of our bogey teams, I think.
3. You can’t keep missing penalties. That’s 3 on the trot. I get about excited about them now as when we have a corner. Some practice on the training pitch needed. Alternatively, just belt the thing really hard.
Have a go at our Lincoln City v Doncaster Rovers Quiz below:
And here’s what Chimpimp said:
1. When you don’t get on the right side of the result common sense goes out of the window and raw illogical emotion comes racing in.
This is the life of many a football supporter, the only thing that matters is the score. By 5pm on Saturday based on that logic, Lincoln are rubbish. Don’t kid yourself we were unlucky, or it was one of those days, the reality is we are toothless, have blown a great opportunity, can’t cross, don’t make the right runs, are hopeless at set-pieces. We learned all this against Doncaster because only four days earlier the same players were part of the best team many of those same supporters had seen in a Lincoln shirt in 60 years. Strange football isn’t it.
2. As the hour’s pass we might also reflect that this team are actually getting better and better. The consistency and ability of this team in terms of bringing the ball to the final third is now really excellent. It brings with it its own issues. Teams also know they can’t expose themselves to the counter-attack and so have to hope to get lucky by defending deep and it turned out to be their lucky day. Scoring with your only real shot, while keeping a clean sheet having had your bar rattled and saved two penalties, usual counts as a lucky day.
3. Michael Appleton probably hasn’t learned much today that he didn’t already know. He’s had success as a manager and knows what it takes. He probably sleeps easy at night knowing he has a team that is improving by the week and should continue to get better. Those searching for reasons why we lost will point to all the shortcomings of today’s performance and Appleton alluded to a better method of penalty taking which he will remind the players about. There are always things you can do better. Anyone that loses and thinks there is nothing that could have been done to change the result are never going to improve. But there is also a reason why we have both cup competitions and leagues.
The best teams don’t always win Cups, it just takes one poor performance or game where the crucial incidents all happen to go in favour of one team, to be knocked out of the Cup. No one can confidently predict whether Lincoln will win the Papa John trophy this season. However, after today, despite the scoreline suggesting Doncaster are a better side than Lincoln, only a Yorkshireman would expect to have a crook in their neck when looking up their opponent’s league standing come May.
Thank you to Graham Burrell and Lincoln City Football Club for the photograph!
Lincoln City 0-1 Doncaster Rovers:
Three Things We Learned:https://t.co/RZJkRXkx4U#ImpsAsOne #ProudToBeImps #DRFC pic.twitter.com/bAPTKmSNrO
— Vital Lincoln City (@VitalLincoln) February 2, 2021
