Our Patreon Discord channel was lively last night, and one of the elements we discussed was crossing.
It seems there was some disagreement. On the one hand, I feel our crossing, in terms of volume, is up (spoiler alert, it isn’t). On the other hand, there was a train of thought that it was down and poorly comparable to the teams we have faced. There is only one way to settle this…, fight!
Sorry, not fight, stats. I meant stats.
People say that you can make stats say whatever you want, but surely, here, there is a simple answer. Are we crossing more this season, and are those crosses better? Simple, right? Then I can look at how the figures compare to other teams in the division and come up with a simple conclusion.
I love it when an article lands in my lap.
Lincoln City Crossing Stats
Firstly, let’s look at the stats for just us – how does our crossing compare to seasons gone by?
I’ll do just League One games, so numbers aren’t skewed by us pumping balls in against Under-21 outfits. It’s also important to remember that an accurate cross can be made inaccurate by poor positioning from strikers, and a rubbish cross can be made accurate by good movement, so it reflects not only on the player crossing, but also the alertness in the area.
For clarity, Wyscout defines an accurate cross as a pass from the flanks towards a teammate in the opponent’s penalty area that successfully reaches its target. Accuracy is a metric calculated as (Successful crosses / Total crosses) x 100, where successful means the cross is completed to a teammate in a dangerous area, and the pass has an element of lateral movement to a central area in front of the goal.
| Season | Crosses Per Game | Accuracy |
|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 12.2 | 39.1% |
| 2024/25 | 14.3 | 36.1% |
| 2023/24 | 11.1 | 30.7% |
| 2022/23 | 12.4 | 27.0% |
| 2021/22 | 12.1 | 25.8% |
| 2020/21 | 12.7 | 27.2% |
The numbers say our crossing hasn’t dropped off significantly, but there has been a fall. We’re putting two fewer in at present, but remember the sample size is different – all the other seasons are 46 games, whereas this one is currently only 18 games old.
What is interesting is that our accuracy has crept up, not down. Since Michael Skubala came in, cross accuracy has gone up from 27% under Mark Kennedy and 25.8% under Michael Appleton to 39.1%. That’s a significant jump when the other numbers are marginal.
If you break it down, we average 4.75 successful crosses this season, exactly the same as last season. Kennedy’s full season was 3.35, and Appleton’s two full seasons were 3.12 and 3.44
League One Numbers
| Season | Highest L1 | Lowest L1 | Imps’ Volume Position | Imps’ Accuracy Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025/26 | 18.87 | 10.85 | 18 | 2 |
| 2024/25 | 17.9 | 10.28 | 9 | 4 |
| 2023/24 | 21.15 | 10.68 | 22 | 17 |
| 2022/23 | 18.87 | 9.74 | 20 | 23 |
| 2021/22 | 21.26 | 10.1 | 18 | 24 |
| 2020/21 | 19.82 | 10.9 | 20 | 23 |
In terms of League One, there seems to have been a shift. While we have put two fewer in, we’ve dropped from ninth-best last season, to 18th in the current crossing table. That is in terms of volume, but in terms of accuracy, we’re second in the current table.
In fact, the accuracy of our crossing has seen a huge improvement since Michael Skubala came in. In the three seasons another manager was in charge, we were either 23rd or 24th. Michael came in, the hybrid season we were 17th, and since then, we’ve been fourth and currently second.
I didn’t go looking for these stats; they found me, but it seems to suggest that far from our crossing going downhill, we’ve improved the accuracy and, under Michael Skubala, also improved the volume. Interesting stuff, right?
Conclusion
Does this pour a little scorn on the eyetest? Probably not. We do put fewer crosses into the box this season, but perhaps the number will even out as the season progresses. We’re not strictly comparing like for like, with 18 games going up against 46, but as a guide, things are not that different.
What this little project actually told me was that under Michael Skubala, we’ve just got better at crossing. Not in terms of how much we do it, but in terms of something landing on a player’s head or at their feet.
It’s also worth pointing out that a corner does not count as a cross, as it would be easy to point to the set pieces as a reason we’ve got better (our set pieces have improved), but again, corners are different. We actually have the fewest corners in the division (three per game, alongside Blackpool) but are still only two set-piece goals off the best tally (six, with eight the top number).