City back to the top in thriller.

I started to watch the match when I got home from Sincil Bank. I see the FGR love fest is back on as far as the TV pundits are concerned and they seemed convinced the moneybags village team are going to take the league, not the Imps. Mind you I did wonder if City were going to be able to claw their way back into Saturdays early lunchtime encounter myself.

Yet even though it didn’t look ever so hopeful come the start of the second half it did seem that this was as much City’s fragility as Forest Green Rovers dominance, they weren’t dominant. For all the Imps lack of penetration they looked the more likely championship contenders whatever the so called experts may think.

City had to find some way out of their uncertainty following the exit from FA Cup and Trophy in the space of a week. I expected that to come last Tuesday when the win or even draw failed to materialise. I expected three points from Borehamwood and one on Saturday but the win against the brief league leaders will do very nicely as it blunts the pretenders progress and chalks another game off the league programme. City don’t have to win those games in hand, draws will do or at least match what their opponents do.

The TV pundits would have us believe City are the long ball cloggers and FGR the silky smooth operators, well excuse me I saw nothing on Saturday to suggest that was the case. FGR may not be direct as City are stated to be but give me a team that attempts to get the ball in the danger zone quickly over FGR who seemed to be intent on launching the ball into the stratosphere most of the time. Once City had got that first goal out of their system I thought they looked every inch the table toppers.

City’s advantage over the rest of the field is slender and we must now hope that they can continue the swagger that came back as they overcame Rovers for the remainder of the fixtures. We now know that City do have a soft underbelly that had seemed well protected but is now a worry but the way they saw out this latest home win gives us hope that the jitters may be over.

The performance of Lee Angol alongside Matt Rhead seems to suggest City have happened upon a front two that teams may struggle to cope with. Defensively the Imps are strong but need to cut out the errors visited on the side by those who are supposed to be assisting defensive duties, mentioning no names but altogether it was a very satisfying win.

I’d have liked to have seen Matt Rhead slot that sitter away though. Still, you can’t have everything.