“The days of Rhead are not over.”

After Saturday afternoons 1-0 defeat at home against Crawley Town in Sky Bet League Two, we asked our members what three things they learned.

Here’s what kickingimp said:

1. The Lincoln method of closing players down and working hard for your teammates does work well in League Two. However, it isn’t just used by Lincoln and we need to find a way to either go head to head and out Lincoln teams or find a way of beating our own method.

2. Despite Anderson and Andrade covering back well, helping Toffolo and Eardley. Once they had covered back it was a long way back up top to support Akinde who then had to either hold up the ball until support arrives or try and do this alone. Like Green last season this doesn’t get the best out of the talent that is. By making the runs up and down all game, which they tried to, you could tell that that extra 1% needed to get past the defender was too often missing. So, in summary, a change of formation (in this situation) to 4-4-2 would ease the pressure on the top man and allow the wingers to choose when to make the key runs.

3. The days of Rhead are not over, his link-up play with Akinde, and his ball-winning in the number 10 position showed he can still be a big part of the team this season. Don’t expect goals, but expect assists. For the opposition two big men to mark is horrible. But for us, Rhead can lay off and put through the most sublime balls for Duracell (triple-A: Anderson, Akinde and Andrade) which will give us the aerial dimension which we seem to miss. Add to this Rhead’s ability in defending corners/free-kicks takes a lot of pressure off the defence. As a side note, by adding Rhead into the defence on corners, it means you can leave someone on the halfway line to break quickly with the ball.

Thank you to Graham Burrell and Lincoln City Football Club for the photograph!