Following Saturday’s 1-1 draw at home against Sheffield Wednesday in League One, I asked the Vital Lincoln City members what three things they learnt from the match.
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Here’s what sedgleyimp said:
1. The key to how we score when we are essentially playing seven outfield players was evidenced in the opening moments of the second half. Keeping with what is essentially a back five with two holding midfielders means that chances will be few and far between. What we saw at the beginning of both halves though is the key to getting on the scoresheet and on both occasions it involved Danny Mandroiu running beyond Ben House and being the most advanced player. In the first half, his effort was blocked, in the second he constructed a clever finish which ultimately earned us the point we deserved. This kind of movement beyond the lone striker will be key to the attacking success of this formation and with the likes of Mandroiu and Diamond we have players capable of making such runs.
2. The system is starting to work, but can be undone by a simple mistake. Saturday’s game continued the recent formation change. It was devised to secure the defensive side of the side. In that time we have conceded only three goals. All of those goals came as a result of an error by an individual player. Literally, a total of about 30 seconds of total play this month have cost us goals. The rest of the time it has been very solid. It might make us less exciting to watch, but so very often successful sides are built from the back and this is a results business after all. Cut out those little moments of madness, and we will become very difficult to score against.
3. Sometimes you have to admire an opposing player. Barry Bannan was excellent for Wednesday in the middle of the park. Yes, we gave him a bit too much room, but you can see he is a class above this league even at the age of 32. He is a very intelligent player who almost instinctively knew where he wanted to be to control the centre of the pitch and has a very sweet left foot. I suspect that Wednesday will be competing for the top 6 this season, but on Saturday’s showing if they lose him for a long period of time they just might struggle to make that breakthrough.
Lincoln City 1-1 Sheffield Wednesday: Three Things We Learnt:https://t.co/8BfbmzcW4M#ImpsAsOne #WeAreImps #SWFC
— Vital Lincoln City (@VitalLincoln) October 25, 2022
