Another Game Thrown Away: Imps 2-3 MK Dons

If the first 45 left me feeling full of Christmas cheer, the second had an air of inevitability about it, like I knew what was coming. I didn’t feel ‘oh, we’re going to win this’, I felt like we might crumble if they got a goal. It sounds silly, but at 2-0 up the next goal was crucial. If they got it, they’d feel they were in control. If we got it, we might actually get those three points at home we’ve craved since October 16th.

I’m not one for blame, but if you watch the opening goal, it’s all our own fault. Montsma plays a ball into Fiorini in the middle of the park and he’s dispossessed, far too easily. It’s then simple, Boateng plays across the front of our defence to an unmarked Twine, who scores easily. It’s a woeful goal to concede, and from that moment on, in my mind, the result wasn’t really in doubt.

I was surprised at the moments afterwards, when Twine and Bridcutt had a wrestle. It looks from the replays as if they grapple each other, and yet one is booked and the other not. Why? If Bridcutt has the ball, surely the aggressor is Twine, whether our player is in the wrong or not? If one is a booking, the other is and if the other is a booking, it’s his second for getting involved with our players. It’s grasping at straws, maybe, but I felt Twine shouldn’t have been on the pitch after that. Maybe it was wishful thinking.

They laid siege a bit after that, but I felt we regained our composure and should have wrapped the game up. I always had a feeling of utter dread, every time they went forward. They were certainly better in the second period, but they didn’t have to be, not really. One or two of our players disappeared the moment the second went in, playing errant passes and looking suddenly devoid of confidence. It was so depressing to see, but a handful kept composed. TJ had a solid game at right-back, no doubt, and I thought Poole was doing well.

On 73 minutes, with us 2-1 up, we should have sealed the game. Now, before I talk about this, I have just been on social media and I see we played well for ’30 minutes’, and that was that. I’m not having that; in patches we played well in the second half as well, and we did so with a makeshift defence, without two of our best central defenders, without a recognised striker on the field and with players who have thus far been disappointing. The narrative of ‘the manager must go’ is absurd to me. Here’s a bold statement and you can shoot me down (as I won’t read the Twitter comments today anyway), but even if we were to be relegated, I wouldn’t sack the manager. Some of the stuff people write about him on social media is so blinkered and without context or the bigger picture it is unreal. Results good, manager great, results bad, manager’s fault. The underlying issues of form, injuries, confidence and poor performances are not all his fault, yet some seem to think getting rid of him would be the answer. It’s laughable how little some people genuinely understand football. Sorry if that’s you, but it is.

Anyway, on 73 minutes, there’s a classic example of fine margins. Anthony Scully, who was apparently refusing to play, being sold and had fallen out with the manager, proved that the internet is full of rubbish by coming on to a huge ovation. Of course, within a couple of minutes he created a chance, coming down the left and squaring for Lewis Fiorini. Now, I had a great view of the chance from the boxes and let me tell you this; that was an awful, awful miss. The xG stats gave it as 0.3, meaning two times out of three, it doesn’t go in. From six yards, with nobody around you? Come on, that’s a better chance than a penalty. I’ll keep referring to xG as a barometer of chances, but that for me was a 0.8. It was a glorious chance, one that in my opinion, goes in eight times out of ten, maybe even nine. I’ll relive that moment in my head over and over until Wednesday, at least.

Within two minutes, it’s 2-2. Now, if Fiorini scores and we win 3-2, or 3-1, Michael Appleton is a hero and people don’t come out and scream at him on social media. Ok, it didn’t go in, but what changes? Would one kick really be the difference between him doing a good job and a bad one? How on earth can the manager take the fall for the team creating chances (which is good) but not taking them? You can talk to me about poor signings, but one huge detractor of Michael (Happy Christmas Kev) was also telling everyone how great Fiorini would be for us. For me, that’s almost nonsensical; judging the manager on signings that even the doubters thought we great. If that great signing (and I’m not on Fiorini’s back here, it could have been any of those who missed) was just slightly more accurate, the game’s won and everyone wanting Michael out is back in their box for a week.

I know, it didn’t go in, but I’d be more worried if we weren’t creating chances. Right now, hand on heart, I am worried. I admit it, there are a few things wrong with certain players but I don’t think they’re all the manager’s fault. Do I think he should have played Jamie Robson over Bramall yesterday? Yes, if he’s fit. However, do I think Michael Appleton is to blame because Liam Bridcutt has blocked a ball straight to an attacker, an attacker benefitting from a defence socially distancing from black shirts? No, of course not. In training, Michael doesn’t go ‘stay away from the MK defenders and if a weak ball is played towards you, just knock it to them rather than hoofing it into row Z’. He doesn’t. What he does do is set the patterns of play up that should have seen us 3-1 up long before we started handing out the Christmas gifts like the fat bloke who wears red and white.

We had our chances, we really did. The curling ball from Maguire that saw Bridcutt flying in, desperate to atone for his defensive slip. A ball from the right into Draper who was just beaten to the ball. Maguire failing to bring the ball down to get one-on-one after a defensive slip, Adelakun arriving just a little late for a Scully ball; they weren’t gilt-edged, but they were all chances that could (and at least one should) have brought a goal. Instead, as the game wound down, there was only ever going to be one winner. It was inevitable, as inevitable as Christmas tweets about Lynx gift sets, or nobody listening to Boris ‘cheese and wine’ Johnson when he tries to impose restrictions this week.

Before that (it might have been before the goal as well), I saw an example of something I really didn’t like from Maguire. He went down, trying to buy a bit of time in the latter stages. I can handle that, no bother, it’s what teams do and if he’d stayed down, maybe it would have worked. Instead, as Dean Lewington (who I believe is actually older than Christmas) said something, Maguire sprang up like Hulk Hogan hulking up, and got in the defender’s face. Why? Within a second he went from prone on the ground to agitating, and I don’t get it. If he was a good professional (loosely speaking), he stays down and buys thirty seconds, a minute, taking the sting out of the game, Instead, he gets up and makes himself look a fool, and loses any advantage we gained from his supposed injury. Embarrassing.

The final goal is laughable and if Twine claims it, he should be ashamed. His late effort was going high and wide, but of course, in our last-ditch attempt to block the shot, Poole deflects it into his own net. It’s an own goal, and one that the sponsor’s Man of the Match couldn’t have avoided. At that point, I just wanted to leave. I text my mates Chris and Pete and told them both I hate football. The earth felt, for a brief moment like it had opened up and I’d fallen into it. I guess you all react differently, some of you reach for your phones and want the manager sacked, others (like my Dad) tell me the players aren’t fit to wear the shirt, but when quizzed can only come up with a sub who got ten minutes, and then there’s me who just wants to cry. We’d lost a game we should have won against another team who, bar one or two individuals, were no better than us.

That’s why I do think we can salvage this season with a couple of signings, because you stick a Scott Twine figure in our side, and maybe a centre half, and we’re on a level with them. Seriously, laugh if you want, but with a squad we all know isn’t good enough and is depleted, we should have won, this against a team able to buy Mo Eisa in the summer. We’re not far away and my only fear is that any new signings immediately feel the low confidence of some of our arrivals in the summer. Sadly, the atmosphere is toxic at Sincil Bank, as the late boos proved.

I have a mate called Jimmy who has just started bringing his boy to the games. He’s always been a Spurs fan, but his lad Teddy is now old enough to enjoy football and Jimmy has always insisted he was going to be brought up supporting his local team. He messaged me after the game, pig sick of course, but he said something interesting that I put some value behind. After all, he’s a neutral of sorts. He said that as soon as the first MK goal went in, the fans were on the player’s backs for every little mistake: “I can’t stress enough that when a large majority of a stand sighs at one stray ball, the players will stop expressing themselves. It was evident today; back the f*****g team and they will believe in themselves, it’s not rocket science’.

What a great way to finish the article

As an aside, I had a nice time meeting the winners of the Stacey West raffle in the box. There was plenty of football chatter and it was nice to share the game with what I’d term as members of the silent majority, those not reactionary on social media and who can see the bigger picture. Hopefully, bar the result, a good time was had by all, and thanks to Rach and Ben for putting the box up as a prize.