Two nil and, well, you know the rest.

 

Oh dear. It was all going so well. City, unrecognisable from the stuttering losers of the last few weeks. The tweaks made to the team, no doubt forced on the manager but nevertheless working had me thinking we might be ok here.

Then, a well finished oggie and, best of all an MK player falling over in his own box, I’ll just grab the ball like I’ve seen on the telly, penalty! How we laughed.

Chris Maguire stepped up to take the kick, smiles wiped off faces but no, in it goes, two nil. What could possibly go wrong?

Yet, at the back of my mind, if MK get a goal, that’s it. We’ll cave in. It didn’t happen in the first half although Dons were certainly getting in the game. Get to half time, let Michael give the team a few pointers and with Scully on the bench it’s looking good. There was an unaccustomed round of applause at the half time whistle. Yes the team were patched up. Yes there were one or two scruffy moments but this was a team that have turned the corner, right? Wrong. It’s not the Lincoln City of a couple of years ago it’s the here and now and right now nothing is going right. Nothing.

You can blame the manager, plenty are, not me but plenty are but, for me, after the euphoria of last season we are right back to earth with a bump and Lincoln City are struggling to compete financially. The expected loan signing didn’t materialise. We don’t know the circumstances but possibly other signings didn’t happen either. If City had a goal poacher to stick an unspectacular foot on a cross, you know which one I’m talking about, the Imps win the game and plenty of others too.

We don’t however so we are left with the hope that, assuming the player is who we think, he will score the goals and galvanise the team to rescue the precarious position they’re in and end the season still in league one. After Saturday, for the first time, I allowed myself the possibility that we will not but I look at the good bits and still think we have enough quality to survive. It’s worth remembering though, that the worst that can happen is we end up in league two and, in my view, were now far better than that level.

I’m sure you’d rather not but, looking at the second half it was the usual story. MK Dons did get their goal, poor from us and, as predicted, got another then got their winner from a shot that was going anywhere but in the goal. When your luck’s out………

Help me doctor. I’m suffering from passbacks.

 

Regular readers of this blog will know I claim no particular mastery of tactics. But even I know the likelihood of scoring a goal diminishes the further away from that white rectangle you are.

Thus, City, with moments go before the end of the match, staring another defeat in the face, were studiously heading away from the supposedly intended target. Players, it seems to me, are unwilling to put themselves in the way of criticism by actually getting in a position to have a swing at a ball flashed across the goal area and as we all know, if you don’t have a go, you don’t score. That, in a nutshell appears to be the problem at the moment.

Having said all that Chris Maguire, a player I regard as one of City’s more skilful, did somehow conspire to send a shot over the roof of the stand, a feat I’ve rarely seen in sixty years of presenting myself at Sincil Bank in the hope of being entertained. That’s the way it is presently.

I’m told the team endured a chorus of boos at the end. I heard some booing but it wasn’t that much, certainly over in the more genteel surroundings of the library. Those I did hear seemed to be the result of said Mr Maguire supposedly telling a fan or some fans where to get off. I don’t mind that to be honest. I’d sooner a defeat hurt the players than not. It certainly hurt me. You can tell me I’m wrong, I frequently am, but pound for pound I thought City’s players were better than Hartlepool’s were, not that it made any difference as the game took on a now familiar pattern of City fashioning some good attacking play, failed to convert any of it, our opponents had one chance, or it seemed like that, ball in the net and as we all know after that it’s goodnight Vienna.

What do we do about it? Well I’ve heard the inevitable calls for the managers head. I can’t in all honesty see what good that will do. I do wonder about Michael Appleton’s health though, well we know about it. The trouble is, like the Queen, he can’t really take a couple of weeks off to recuperate from his recent travails so we wait, I guess for the sound of galloping hooves as the cavalry arrives to relieve the beleaguered garrison. At least I hope they do.

I‘ve often thought, in the last few years, we’ve had more than our fair share of luck. In those moments we were enduring with City supposedly heading for defeat, those skywards glances hoping for divine intervention were sometimes answered and even the most desperate situations were occasionally turned around. Not anymore. Just rain, rain and more rain.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.