Michael Appleton: “People don’t appreciate how difficult that is sometimes.”

Michael Appleton summarised the start to the season and reflected on a satisfactory start, ahead of the midweek game versus Bolton Wanderers.

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Fleetwood Match: “Coming up against a back 5 is difficult. People don’t appreciate how difficult that is sometimes. You have a lot of possession and it looks like you’re not playing well. The lads showed great courage on Saturday and a lot of patience to wait as long as they did”.

MA observed it was two bits of quality that brought the all-important two goals.

Start to the Season: “To pick an away point at a place like Gillingham is never easy and then obviously to back it up with a home win in the first home game of the season was really pleasing”.

MA sees the first couple of games as jockeying for position. Ideally, he would like to extend an unbeaten run for 5, even 10 matches as at that point ‘you’ have given ‘yourself’ a great chance. 10 games is a good indicator as to how things are going to pan out.

The Imps are better placed now, having possibly 4 players on the bench that can come on and change a game. That is what he expects from those players who will probably feel unlucky to have been left out of the starting XI.

Bolton Wanderers: MA views Bolton as a huge club that has put their off-field problems from recent years, behind them. They currently have the feel-good factor about them.

“They’ve got a lot of momentum, a lot of things going for them because of the success they had last year; certainly from January onwards”.

On the playing front Dan N’Lundulu has literally only had about ten minutes playing team (pre-season due to injury) but is back in training so his return will be carefully managed. Chris Maguire won’t be seen until early or mid-September.

Looking forward, MA has not decided whether or not to hold a midweek friendly game during the Carabao Cup 2nd round week, in order to get ‘minutes’ into the squad. He will see how the players are faring after the Bolton match and make a decision at that juncture.

Writer: hulloutpost

Michael Appleton: "People don't appreciate how difficult that is sometimes."https://t.co/r6mh94wLEd#ImpsAsOne #ProudToBeImps #BWFC

— Vital Lincoln City (@VitalLincoln) August 17, 2021