9 months and nothing : The thoughts of the season

By theimps.tk
May 17 2006

It's been an odd season at Sincil Bank and although there were one or two good things, disappointment reigns again. It was a season where the Imps came out of nowhere, made the playoffs and failed yet again but what are the major contribution factors to the latest failure.

Cast your minds back to 3 years ago when City had made the playoffs for the first time and the team did the City proud. When the playoffs were a new and refreshing thing to do in May and you loved every minute of it. Even lost the final that year wasn’t too bad and you were looking forward to the next season. Roughly 150 weeks after that defeat to Bournemouth and it’s amazing how quickly our opinions have changed.

 

Whilst the semi-final defeat to Huddersfield 2 seasons ago was disappointing, the last 2 attempts have been a joke. After struggling to beat Macclesfield, City battered Southend for 104 minutes, the Shrimps had just a single shot in the game up until this point and anyone who claims they deserved to win is having a laugh. A lucky goal against the run of play in the final minute of extra time’s first half effectively ended the game before Southend doubled their lead.

 

Then we get to this season and a game against Grimsby, at the very least you’d expect half the players would have cared, however you could count the players who genuinely cared on one hand and still waste a few finger. Not once over the 4 day period did the Imps look like scoring and it says it all that our single goal came when Grimsby’s best player was off the pitch.

 

It really does make you wonder why we get so excited about these playoffs because the players up until now have been the equivalent of Francis Green. They put the effort in but there was no end product and at the end of the day, it’s simply not good enough. Instead of potentially looking forward to trips to Nottingham Forest, Huddersfield, Bournemouth, Gillingham and Crewe, we’re now left with the less than mouth watering prospects of Torquay, Barnet, Darlington, Rochdale and Milton Keynes.

 

So why has another playoff campaign failed. We weren’t exactly overawed by Grimsby but yet again this season, the defence didn’t do their job properly. The defending for all 3 goals for the Mariners was only just short of pathetic. It has been the same all season long and whilst everyone has been blaming the strikers, people have failed to realise that if the defence did their jobs, we wouldn’t have to score 2 or 3 every game. Northampton, Bury, Wrexham, Boston and Wycombe are all games where we got less than what we deserved because the defence didn’t do their jobs properly.

 

Everyone has blamed the attack but we have scored around the same amount of goals this season than we have in the previous 2. Gary Birch and Marvin Robinson scored nearly 25 goals between them and people say they’re crap, but considering both had long spells out of the side, that’s quite good. People say Birch brings nothing to the squad but you take his goals out of this season, we would lose 12 points. That shows how vital his goals are and his goals have won us more points (as in wins turn into draws with his goals) than Yeo, Forrester, Green, Gritton and Ryan put together.

 

One of the more curious common occurrences during the season was the mysterious disappearances of players after they had hit form. The 2 main players falling into this category are Steve Robinson and Luke Foster, the latter especially played well whenever he was in the squad but then he would just disappear for weeks and months on end.

However, don’t think this is all negative because one major plus to come out of the season is a few youngster coming into the squad. After getting a lot of abuse earlier in the season, Jeff Hughes has turned into one of our best players and he could be a huge star one day. Luke Foster has had a good year and will hopefully be a regular next season. Lee Frecklington has also come out of nowhere and has impressive many people. Ollie Ryan, where do I begin, is it just a lack of luck or just a lack of confidence that causes him to hit every shot straight at the goalkeeper? He tries hard and you get the feeling that once he scores one, he’ll score a few but I’ll be honest and say out of all the strikers at the club, he’s bottom of the pecking order.

 

Derek Asamoah, what can you say? A player that could delight you one minute and destroy your soul through his frustrating actions. However, this isn’t about Asamoah but mainly about Keith’s inconsistency towards players. Midway through the season, Asamoah was sent on loan to Chester City and he hit a bit of form. Keith however refused to recall him because he had apparently given him enough chances to prove himself in his 1 year stay. That’s fair enough until you consider how many chances he has given to Francis Green over a longer period which Green has then gone on to waste.

 

Overall, it’s been a very odd season both on an off the pitch and although a playoff place was unexpected, it was frustrating that we worked hard to make the playoffs and then throw it all away without really putting up a fight. Next season will be very hard. This season was the weakest this division has been in a long time and a lot of good sides have now been relegated from League 1 and I would be very surprised if at least 3 of the 4 coming down didn’t finish in the top 7.

 

I’m not optimistic about next season but then again, this club always manages to surprise everyone but we must avoid these playoffs.

 

See you all on Saturday 5^th August.