City triumphant in a victory for good over bad? Not really.

 

Happy Christmas, the blip is over. Well, we hope it is after yesterdays win over a workmanlike Northampton Town. If the theory is correct we could soon progress from regarding our local rivals as North Ferriby and Boston United to Grimsby and Mansfield, to Hull and Peterborough and then to Forest and Derby. If we don’t actually overtake those two that is. Perhaps we had better stop there but the fact of the matter is we have now got to Christmas and the Imps are joint top of league one and the accepted wisdom is it is likely that the teams at the top at Christmas may still be there at the end of the season. Think about that.

Northampton Town, how can I put this without sounding like those managers who prefaced their press conferences for games against City with the words “we know what to expect from Lincoln”, often before a loss against us. Northampton Town have gone down a different route, tactics wise to City and, as we know, the City approach prevailed. Beauty and the beast, David verses Goliath.

City fans were quick to accept that there is more than one way to win a football match and, no doubt recalling those mealy mouthed comments, they’re good at what they do, it’s not for us but….. you know the thing but the fact remains that Northampton weren’t very good at what they did and, just when some fans were allowed back into their stadium conspired to get booed off probably as much as a result of the rather ruffian nature of their game as opposed to the somewhat silkier Imps. I always got the impression that Cobblers fans saw themselves as the southern sophisticates when compared to us northern oiks rather like Peterborough who are not that far away and similarly not particularly southern.

There was a time when the majority of teams outside the top division played a version of Cobblers tactics, power and athleticism over skill and anticipation. I remember my Dad saying, with some distain, of Portsmouth in a game he’d seen, they played the passing game. Now of course a majority of teams in league one play a more measured approach but not Northampton but I’m going to leave it there. It’s not for us, or rather it’s not for our manager but the fact remains that a version of that football got us where we are now, with many tweaks along the way but it has been recognized that a different ethos must prevail if we are to progress still further.

That goes for the whole operation of the club not just tactics and it is clear from listening to Michael Appleton that the potential sale of any not just some of his players does not faze him one bit. The trick is to have a replacement ready to cover for any losses of personnel and in that respect he’s no different to the Cowleys although I do have to say he seems to sign very few duds which was not always the case.

City swept past Northampton and that could have been the case against Shrewsbury had things panned out differently although the Shrews did not resort to the dark arts the way Cobblers did. Sunderland are a different kettle of fish. Sometimes you have to accept that you were beaten by the better team. Yesterday that is exactly what happened to Northampton.