Imps win without leaving 1st gear

By Nathan Jackson
March 20 2005

It's been a while that City could afford a very relaxed performance, City were 2-0 up within 20 minutes and had yet to go out of 1st gear. Thankfully though Shrewsbury were awful and failed to have a single clear cut chance during the whole game.

City started the game and immediatly went on the attack but that was over as quickly as the 7th second when Beevers had a clash of heads with a Shrewsbury defender. Beevers was down for a long time, not moving for quite a while. He eventually got back up though, visibly shaken but continued. Shrewsbury however created the games first oppurtunity when they won a corner in the 2nd minute but it was easily dealt with mby City's defence. In the 7th minute, City showed Shrewsbury how it's done when Sandwith put Yeo into play who sent in a right footed cross-come-shot which hit the upright before bouncing back across goal and Francis Green headed in from mere yards out of the goal to give him his first goal since the end of August.

Asamoah had the next chance when he rounded Challis but dragged his shot wide. City were dominating the game and Shrewsbury were looking to become on of the worst sides we've played at Sincil Bank this season. Green could have made it 2-0 but his shot went wide on 14 minutes. However, it didn't stay 1-0 for long. A Beevers throw in was headed down to Yeo who took his time to place the ball between everyone in a packed box and past Howie to make it 2-0 with only 17 minutes gone, it looked like it was going to be a question of how many City would score.

Asamoah was the next to test Howie after out-running Challis but his targeting was off. Hold on a minute, what's going on here, do my eyes decieve me??? no, Shrewsbury have had a shot although it went well wide from Sheron. Langmead also had a long range shot minutes later but it didn't trouble Marriott.

Yeo sent a 32nd minute shot wide and the next minute saw Howie make a fine save from Green's shot. Green should have made it 3 just minutes later but he headed over from Sandwith's cross.

The second half started slowly but then an incident happen that was good but in a bad way. Yeo went in for a challenge on their attacker and then collapsed to the ground clutching his leg which was twitching really badly. After about 3 minutes he was finally strecthered away, now I know what you're thinking, where's the good in that? Well the person coming on for him was youth team striker, Ollie Ryan. Keith has shown a keen interest in getting the young lads through from the first team and has given 5 of the youth team a chance this season, Mettam, Kerley, Frecklington, Ryan and Hobbs have all been given a taste of the proper match day experience although Mettam didn't actually make an appearance in his substitute place.

Shrewsbury has a 68th minute corner which as usual was broken up. Gain sent a shot wide before Ryan had his first chance but his could only send his shot well over the bar. City were now relaxed in their approach, especially Gain who seemed determind to try and give Shrewsbury the ball almost as quickly as he got it. Luckily Shrewsbury were one of the worst attacking teams we've played this season.

The game came to a close and City secured their first win in 5, first clean sheet in 6 and we're not guaranteed to be at minimum 8th come next Saturday as the only two teams who can over take us on Friday night, play each other.