Reaction to the win over Barnet

Three seasons in a row have now seen City's first win at home come over Barnet, and it was a game that gave the Imps their second win of the season. However, things weren't as good as the score would indicate and there is a lot of work to be done, that despite the possibility of the Imps moving up to sixth on Friday night.

I hate it these days when we win, don't get me wrong, I love getting 3 points but often we are second best and haven't generally deserved to get the 3 points. At Gillingham we scored and then did the usual thing of sitting back and hoping the opposition don't score, occasionally counter attacking ourselves, Barnet wasn't much different as after scoring from the spot, we didn't produce many other chances on goal and Barnet certainly deserved something out of the game.

When none of your three strikers that play get a single shot on target between them, you can tell that something's not going right. Don't get me wrong, with Hutchinson (right) scoring two in his last two games, it's better than not scoring at all, but we will face far better sides than Barnet, sides that will take their chances and we won't win many games unless we start sorting it all out at the back.

It is frustrating that man for man, we generally don't have a bad defender that regularly starts games, but they just can't play together. It's like the Gerrard/Lampard thing for England, individually very good but get them together and something just isn't right. Barnet are not a good side and I suppose if we were not going to close down attackers and allow them to shoot, we should count ourselves lucky that it was Barnet and not teams like Rotherham or Chesterfield, teams that will punish you for not defending properly.

Don't get me wrong, though, this is going to contain positives and for the third time, Chris Sutton has guided us to the dizzy heights of 15^th, the highest he has ever taken us to and it's strange to think that despite being regarded as a bit rubbish by most of our own fans, we will be in the Top 7 if we beat Accrington on Friday night, even if it would more than likely only be for a few hours, infact, we could be as high as 6^th if we win by more than one goal.....a position that we haven't been since the end of August 2007 after Schofield gave us two wins in the first three games to get us to fourth.

However, we shouldn't under-estimate Accrington Stanley, they are a far tougher proposition than a lot of people would give them credit for. Unbeaten in the League and only barely lost to Newcastle in the Carling Cup after winning at Doncaster. If we go there just expecting something then we've got problems, and you get a feeling that's exactly what Sutton will do. He's already said he expects a large points haul over the next eight or so weeks.

So what other positives can I think of other than that we picked up three points? Well Jarrett yet again excelled and it was the first time that he and Carayol have played together for some time, and both played well, both created chances for the others and if we do somehow end up in a promotion challenge, they could be the key.

However, my main point for praise this week is Joe Anyon. Anyon has been described by some as a "poor-man's Burch" but the simple facts show that at the same stage of his career with Lincoln, Burch hadn't kept as many clean sheets as Anyon has. I feel that Anyon is a more than adequate replacement for Burch, especially as Burch didn't keep a clean sheet very often. Anyon was the one reason why we won on Saturday, his saves for fantastic and if he had a competent collective defence in front of him, the Imps would definitely improve.

THEIMPS.KA OFFICIAL RATINGS
	The reason why we won and easily our Man of the Match. Despite only being able to keep 2 clean sheets in his opening 7 games for the Imps, he has been the difference between the Imps getting points and not getting points. 8/10
	Anderson gets better defensively as the games go on, going forward he's a bit dodgy, but defensively he is now fine. 7/10
	Nothing spectacular from the central defender and did his job to the extent where most of Barnet's chances came from long range, did give away a few free kicks though. 6/10
	I'm sure there must be a clause in his contrac somewhere that says that if he is fit, he must play. In all fairness though, he did a reasonable job as a centre back. 6/10.
	A very quiet game by Hughton's standards but did get a few decent blocks in to stop attacks. 6/10
	He's finally fit again and you can tell the difference between the fit Carayol and the one just returning from injury. Him and Jarrett did well for the Imps. 7/10
	Clapham had a decent game again an it's obviously why he used to play at a higher level
	I can't really defend Keltie, he was quite bad. Passing has gone awry a lot in recent games and his pass completion is downing downhill fast 3/10
	Played arguably his best game for the Imps, penalty was very casual but he scored so can't complain. Linked up play reasonably well, but was otherwise average. 7/10
	If he wasn't offside all the time then he would be very handy. 5/10
	Albert returned and played well yet again. Our best outfield player by a country mile so far. 7.5/10
	Kerr came on, the final whistle went about 25 minutes later. The End. 5/10
	Delroy came on and did reasonably well. I'd rather have him starting than Broughton because Facey seems to understand the offside rule. 6.5/10