Half term assessment : So far so good
By Nathan Jackson
December 24 2006
23 games in and we sit 3rd in the table. It's been a really exciting time to be a City fan, and here's my half term report. In the report, I prove a lot of you wrong, debate the goal of the season so far and also report and the best and worst of the first half of the 2006/7 season.
Well 23 games and in we’re 3rd in the table and everyone at Sincil Bank would have taken that at the start of the season. Under the reigns of Phil Stant and Alan Buckley, we didn’t once enter even the playoff places for even just a few days, with Buckley never even taking us into the top 10. Under Keith Alexander, we only spent a total of 4 days in the automatic promotion places, so that just shows what a good job Schofield and Deehan have done so far this season and long may it continue.
I’m going to be a bit smug now but after the Stamford friendly, I said we were playing football and doing it quite well, not a single person believed me and said that I obviously didn’t know anything about football, just 5 short months later and we’ve seen some absolutely fantastic football at Sincil Bank and when we have played football "the right way," there have been very few teams that have matched us and we’ve given several teams some right thumpings.
A lot of our players who were here before the appointment of the 2 John’s, have improved immensely with Lee Frecklington easily being the player to benefit most out of the new system. The emergence of Lee Frecklington from the fringes to a regular first team places, is something that the club should be very proud off and although I sincerely hope he’s still here at the end of the season, it wouldn’t surprise me if he leaves for a Championship side.
The form of Jamie Forrester has also been highly pleasing and is currently the favourite for the "Player of the Season," his vision is fantastic and his role in the first goal against Peterborough, when he knew that Amoo was making that run that lead to the goal, was a prime example of is skills. Forrester is our best striker by a mile and whereas if one of the others gets injured, we could cope, you dread to think what would happen if we lost Forrester’s contribution to the team.
This season’s "Goal of the Season" will be the hardest to decide for a long time. Prime candidates so far have to be Forrester’s 2nd at Mansfield, Frecklington’s against MK Dons (my personal favourite), Beevers’ thunderous finish against Macclesfield, and Stallard’s 2nd at Wycombe, to name just a few. We’ve been treated to some great goals this season and long may it continue.
One thing that’s disappointed me this season has been that we have so often conceded the only shot on target against us. Walsall, Torquay, MK Dons, Peterborough, Boston, Bury, Scunny Chester and Rochdale all scored with their only shots on target and that starts to make you worry quite a lot and if it wasn’t for our goal scoring exploits, we’d have lost quite a fair few games this season because just like last season, our defence is shocking.
As for the opposition, there have been very few teams that have particularly impressed me and even fewer have outplayed us. It still amazes me that Walsall are top because they are one of the worst sides we played and how the hell they’ve lost that few is a mystery. They were the worst out of all the 4 relegated sides we’ve played, Swindon probably being the best whereas Hartlepool and MK Dons were only slightly above average.
Although Walsall were crap, they are one of the 4 relegated sides and it doesn’t surprise me to see that all 4 are in the top 7, yet another thing that I said would happen that everyone responded with "you don’t know anything about football." You know, considering you lot always say I know very little about football, the vast majority of the teams are near enough exactly where I predicted them to be, not bad for someone who apparantly "knows nothing." Maybe some of you are the ones who know nothing.
Anyway, enough of me proving you people wrong (again), the best side we’ve faced so far is Darlington and we were lucky to only lose that 3-1, it was just a nightmare and that was when I seriously started to question if we were good enough to maintain a promotion push and the week after, losing to a below average Wrexham side was even worse because we scored the damn goals for them. Other than that, only Swindon and Shrewsbury particulary impressed me, with both teams controlling their games against us and City scoring with effectively our only shot on target in the whole game (nice bit of role reversal there).
Overall though, I must say I’m highly satisfied with the first 23 games this season and if we can replicate the same points tally in the second lot of 23, then we’ll surely finally win that promotion we’ve deserved for a while now.
BY THE WAY, CAN THE CLUB PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE PRE-MATCH MUSIC, IT IS ATROCIOUS.