Reaction to the defeat at Chesterfield

Another game, another defeat as the Imps lost at Chesterfield. It ended our two-game unbeaten run that some fans had gotten excited about, but at least we finally have a striker that has scored a goal this season.

It's hard to really do a match reaction without starting with mentioning our start to the season. Five defeats from our first seven games in all competitions simply isn't good enough. I'll grant you that we were never going to beat Leeds and the JPT doesn't really matter, so we'll look just at League games and three defeats from five games isn't great.

Everyone is saying that September should see us gain a decent haul of points given the calibre of opponents we're playing, our next two being in that group where you're distraught if they take points off of you, however, that group now realistically includes the Imps. I always find it strange when I read comments from other teams saying that Lincoln are a difficult team to get points against, yet there are very few teams who actually don't get points against City. Also, all of our opponents in September are now above us in the table, so we certainly shouldn't take our opponents for granted given that they have all started the season better than we have.

It's now been over a year since Peter Jackson left, a manager whom a lot of people (including myself) thought wasn't good enough for the job, and yet he had a better record before he left last season than Sutton does at the same point this season. Jackson left last season with 6 points from his four League games in charge, a total that we have yet to reach after five games so far this season. However, compared to how things are currently going, Jackson doesn't look that bad.

Spin it anyway you want, but two points worse off is not progress, regardless of the fact we're strangely a place higher after the same amount of games. We're quickly coming up on the year mark since Chris Sutton took over and in that time we have not really got any better.  I can't quite put my finger on it because on paper we don't have a bad squad....actually, I can put my finger on it, it's four numbers, 4, 1, 4 and 1.

4-1-4-1 is not a formation that will win you many, if any, football matches, and will more often than not lead you to losing games. If you can avoid conceding then you'll probably draw because the formation means that unless you have a very skilful striker, he has to wait for other players to catch up with play and by then the chance has gone. If the striker has managed to break free of the defence to catch onto the hoof then you will probably get lucky, but Lincoln don't have a striker good enough to make clever runs like that.

At Chesterfield it was yet another case of City having chances but not taking them. Yet again City started well and had we had someone who can get a shot on target, we could have been a goal or two up within the first five minutes, but alas, weren't. I suppose one positive on the attacking front is that a striker has finally scored, although it did have a high "hit and hope" quality to it. I'll be honest, I've not been impressed with Ben Hutchinson so far and found his "yeah, this is what I do" celebration a bit strange.

I'm going to end this reaction by mentioning something that shouldn't have happened, bringing Carayol straight back into the side. Don't get me wrong, that's not anything against Carayol and I am a big fan of his, but considering he has apparently barely trained, it was a strange decision to put him straight back into the side, especially given that it was blatantly obvious he was not fully fit/match fit. Normally Carayol would have been able to leave a trial of dust in his wake as he went past the defenders, but none of them had problems keeping up with him today.

And to end this reaction before we get onto the scores, I must make a comment on one of the strangest things I have seen in my near 10 years of consistently watching the Imps. Just before we scored there was a substitution where Scott Kerr replaced Ian Pearce, a seemingly innocent thing to happen in a game of football, except Pearce was just stood near the touchline next to Kerr in the two minutes before the substitution was eventually made. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this. I've heard that Pearce was injured, but it does beg the question why he only went and stood by the touchline for two minutes after Sutton had the chance to make the sub after the ball went out of play.

Oh well, on to face two teams who've we've won 15 of the last 18 games against.

THEIMPS.KA OFFICIAL RATINGS
	Couldn't really do anything about either goal really and did make a few good saves that kept the Imps in the game. Nothing spectacular though. 6/10
	Anderson has another good game at left back and despite some suspect crossing at the attacking end of the pitch, he defended quite well, not that that stopped some moaning at him. 7/10
	Kept Jack Lester quiet in terms of the prolific striker not getting many shots on goal, but did nothing otherwise outstanding. 6/10
	If there's one thing I'll give to Green, he's a trier. One of those guilty of just lumping the ball forward to the lone striker. 5.5/10
	Missed a sitter at 2-0 that would have given the Imps a considerably longer time to try and draw level. Other than that he didn't really seem to do much and returned to his quieter game mode. 5.5/10
	Carayol was poor, but then again he was quite clearly not match fit and I can't blame him for that. He does have the right idea by running at the defence, but having him trying to outpace defenders when he's injured is about as pointless as putting money on City to win the Playoffs. 5/10
	Not bad from Clapham but his passing was someway wayward. He didn't do anything spectacular but then again, he is making Anderson a better defender. 6/10
	Keltie's one of those players that is a Jekyll and Hyde. His passing is either brilliant or it's atrocious and today's was amongst the latter, and his insistance to hoof the ball up to the lone striker did become very tiresome. 4/10.
	His goal was more of a "hit and hope" effort but it was about time that a striker scored this season, so I suppose we can't complain. It was strange that as soon as he scored, he was suddenly having shots for fun. 6/10
	Delroy, Delroy, Delroy, how do I rate thee? Doing reasonably well given that he is playing out of position but didn't really do much. 6/10
	He actually did something for once after coming on, setting up a chance for Hughton. Other than that he was largely anonymous. 5.5/10
	Kerr came on and the Imps scored within seconds, interesting coincedence. Kerr didn't really have time to make any sort of impact and gets a 5 by default. 5/10
	10 minutes of virtually nothing but fouling. Good times! 4/10