Watergate – Imps 2-2 Carlisle

Water aside, there was plenty to pick out of the performance that warranted both credit and criticism. I truly believe in the first half we were the better side. They hit us on the break, twice with success but several times with no success, but overall I genuinely believed we were the better side. Bruno Andrade may as well have gift-wrapped his full back and given him away as a Christmas present he owned him so much, and the patterns of play between him and Harry Toffolo were a joy to watch. I like Harry as an attacking full back, but his defensive attributes still need work.

On the right we got joy too, not as much, but Neal Eardley’s injury put paid to that. James Wilson came on and had a decent game, but he’s not an out and out right back and you could sense he doesn’t have the sort of chemistry with Harry Anderson that Eardley does. Don’t take anything away from Wilson though, that is three games now he’s played in different positions every time. He’s becoming a bit of a versatility man, but he is competent in a couple of roles, rather than outstanding. 

We can’t moan about injuries at all because Carlisle had a centre forward playing in defence, so us moaning that we had a left-sided centre back covering for another left-sided centre back would be ludicrous. They don’t help of course, losing Shackell and Frecklington is a huge blow, both are key players in this side. No matter what anyone says I believe Freck is a huge loss for us in the advanced midfield position.

Case point, whenever the ball fell behind the strikers last night I felt we were second best. I know O’Connor got Man of the Match and he did play well, but often we lacked a challenge on the second ball. That just invites pressure and in years gone by, Alex Woodyard would be the player on the spot. Certainly last night, nobody truly took up the challenge and often we gave away possession from those bounces far too easily, wet pitch or not.

I’m on a roll upsetting people this week, so let’s wade straight in on big John shall we. Genuinely, if you think he had a bad game last night I suspect you see things very differently to me. He offered far more running than Rheady did, but instead of playing into his feet we went long. That isn’t his game. He’s a big unit, yes, but he isn’t an out and out target man. He proved that with the surging run that drew arguably the Carlisle keeper’s best save of the night and technically, everything about that was perfect. He used his power and strength to get away down the channel, cut inside and put the shot in the right area, where the keeper had a chance of parrying it into the path of someone else. 

He challenged his headers, chased what he knew he’d get and should have had a penalty. when we played into feet in the dying embers of the game him and Green worked well together and I can’t for the life of me figure out what he did wrong last night that would warrant being picked out as a villain ahead of Wharton, Rhead, Bostwick, or McCartan. 

Plus he’s barely trained as he currently has a sick child. I’ll say no more, I get accused of being an Akinde lover and whilst I’ll freely admit he hasn’t been as prolific as I imagined, his performance last night doesn’t warrant criticism in my opinion. I’m nearly done now because I can feel all sorts of anger rising in me again. 

Neil Hair.

There we go, anger levels increase by fifteen percent. I’m sorry to all those who want to protect referees, but he got three huge decisions wrong last night. There was a handball in our area by our defenders which should have given Carlisle a penalty, as there was by one of their lads. On neither occasion did the assistant referee flag, which was a surprise given some of the offside decisions, but the referee was no more than twenty yards from either.

Also, did anyone tell Hair he wasn’t meant to get in the way? I counted at least two occasions where we lost possession due to him being right in the way of the ball, one of which led directly to a chance for Carlisle.

Finally, look at the video of Akinde being fouled below please. All I ask is how that is not a penalty? Put the two handball incidents to bed, that is a foul on a player by the keeper in the area, how is it not a penalty? Has there been a rule change recently? Are keepers allowed to do that now?

There’s going to be recriminations after this result, a draw that earned us a point when literally everything conspired against us, including our own inept defending. In my eyes, if you score twice at home you should win, especially if you’re top of the table. Watered pitches and bad referees aside, had we not pressed the self-destruct button twice we’d be five points clear right now. Those other factors didn’t help and if the pitch had been watered and Neil Hair hadn’t bottled the big decisions, we would probably have won the game.

Is that the sort of luck, the sort of point that might pay dividends at the end of the season? I’m not saying it is a good result, far from it, but given everything that happened and the uproar it has caused, let us not lose sight of the fact we didn’t lose. 

I despise the saying ‘we go again’, but perhaps right now it is apt. We travel to Colchester knowing we need to pick up a win because if we do, we will have eight points from four games. Just because the draws came at home and the wins away is irrelevant, two points per game gets you promoted. don’t ask me to predict the scores though because with variables like watered pitches and erratic officials you just never know what is going to happen.