Reaction to Luke Howell's 2010/11

Luke Howell joined the Imps in October, initially on loan, and it was a case of Jekyll and Hyde in terms of performances. He was a trier and he would often run until he could run no more, but his passing was absolutely shocking at times.

Luke Howell joined the club in October, initially on loan from MK Dons and at first I thought he was a decent player, a player who looked uncannily like Ben Wright from distance, he even ran like him. When he was played in central midfield he was excellent, his passing was good and he made an impressive start to live as an Imp.

I was pleased when we signed him permanently but I was highly surprised that Tilson decided him to play on the right wing all of a sudden, a position he is certainly not useful from. In particular I remember a game at Bradford where all of a sudden he had gone from an excellent passer of the ball to one who was aimlessly booting the ball forward to no-one, often going 20/30 yards from the nearest Lincoln player and straight to a defender.

Worryingly this became a common trend and his passing didn't improve during the season and he become a bit of a liability during a lot of games, giving the ball away far too often. I did also find it quite amusing that with a few weeks today he was questioning whether some people were putting their all into the matches, and yet his performances were amongst the worst in the team.

Having said that, Howell was a trier, that's one thing for sure. In the game against Aldershot he ran around until his was absolutely destroyed and you could tell from the look on his face that he had tried his best.

His contract is up in the summer and he was offered a new deal, however, we all have to hope that Tilson plays him in his prefered central midfield position.