Andrew Abbott's Blog

Monday, 24 January 2011

Boss hails Gavin's volley against Wycombe

But we're going to need more where that came from.

Make no mistake about it Lincoln City need to start garnering some points and fast. The table does not lie although it does show that the Imps have not yet completed half their fixtures, unlike most in the league but City are on a four game losing streak and need to engineer a rapid upturn in form if they are not to become detached from the teams above them. Stockport away offers as good a chance as any to achieve this.

Assistant manager Paul Brush pulled no punches in his assessment of recent performances but is mindful of the effect his comments may have so offered a word of understanding to the players in their present fragile state of mind;

"While we have scored some fantastic goals, we have conceded some of the worst I have ever seen in my life, whether I have been in a park or a stadium," he said.

"We will keep working with the players we have and will not try and destroy anybody's confidence, but we know they have to be consistently better.

"Mistakes are so costly and, at the moment, if you look back at the last four fixtures we have been well in those games.

"We look like we can score and when we came to this club three months ago this team had only scored nine and they didn't look like they can score.

"But now we look like we can't go from 20 minutes to half-an-hour without giving the opposition a goal."

Brush is quite right about the goal scoring. City do at least look capable of netting and Ashley Grimes and now Gavin McCallum have added some much needed va va va voom to the striking capability but as he himself points out some of the defending has been lamentable. Talk about one door opening and another one closing!

In Stockport the Imps face a team almost in freefall. They have won just once at home in the league this term and drawn seven so no prizes for guessing the likely outcome of this one. Most fans would settle for not losing after the run City have been on but a win would do much for their confidence. With the Edgeley Park outfit in truly awful form at home, Imps fans will dare to dream.

As is usual for a struggling team, the Lincoln treatment room has been a busy place with Adam Watts (knee) Mustapha Carayol (foot) Clark Keltie (thigh) Gavin Hoyte (hamstring) and now Joe Anderson (knee) all jostling for a session on the table. At least Watts is almost ready for action although whether he makes it in time for Stockport is debatable. Steve Tilson took heart from McCallum's strike and hopes this will spark him on to greater things.

"It was very disappointing we couldn't go on from there to win the game.

"But hopefully that goal will give Gavin the confidence to go on now and put in performances for us.

"You could see after he had scored the goal that his confidence had grown. He looked bright and positive which is what we are looking for him to be on the pitch."

City have now signed Stephen Hunt on a months loan from Notts County. Hunt has generally played as a left back but it is assumed the defender has been recruited to play in the centre of defence bringing some much needed maturity to that position. Also at Sincil Bank for a month is Sunderland goalkeeper Trevor Carson.

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