The hosts made a change at the interval, introducing former Liverpool trainee Adam Phillips, and he almost made an immediate impact. In fairness, I’ve always rated Phillips; he’s been one (like Cameron Brannagan at Oxford) that I’ve always thought I’d love to see in a City shirt. I certainly didn’t want to see him in a Tykes shirt, not for the first 15 minutes of the second half, as they rallied.
Collecting a pull-back from the troublesome Cleary, Phillips fired towards the near post but saw the ball nestle into the side netting. Home fans thought they’d scored, and as you’ll hear on the full match replay on Imps+, it led John Helm to make a great observation: “A lot of Barnsley fans thought that was in. But the thing is that it has to go between the posts and underneath the crossbar.”
It was still an early warning, and Barnsley followed it up with further chances. Josh Earl headed wide from Connell’s cross, while Keillor-Dunn will feel he should have done better on the hour mark when a close-range header went straight at Wickens. He had time, and as their leading scorer, you expect him to make Wickens work. Instead, our stopper only had to stay big and catch the ball. Wickens had a good night, commanding his area well, but with his socks pulled right up, he looked like he was wearing some sort of lime green Lycra onesie. Maybe something for the club shop to consider.
The opening stages of the second half absolutely belonged to the home side, but Skubala responded after 61 minutes with a double change. Reeco Hackett and Ryley Towler were introduced, with City switching to a back three and wing-backs to regain control. It’s a familiar change now, and instead of being negative, it is a change intended to get more control after a period of pressure, and allow us to attack in a different way. How many times, when we were rigid under both Kennedy and Appleton, did an opponent change shape and change the game? Recently, we’ve been doing it, and we’ve been changing a period of the game, usually having already got the lead.
Phillips continued to be Barnsley’s main threat, his shot after 67 minutes deflecting behind off a crowd of bodies and leading to a succession of corners. Each was dealt with authoritatively by Bradley, who dominated his area and cleared repeatedly. The home side began to get frustrated and picked up a couple of yellow cards.
Wyscout haven’t got the game up yet, so I am relying on memory, but I thought one was a borderline red, a lunge on McGrandles as we got away towards goal. The ref gave a yellow as there was no intent to play the ball, but it wasn’t like a little tug, instead a proper kick of the legs. In fairness, aside from missing the penalty, the referee did okay. McGrandles got his own retaliation a moment later, and in the same minute, Hamer and one of their lads got involved, another flashpoint handled well by Paul Howard.
City made the game safe after 72 minutes, and fittingly, it came from another set-piece. That doesn’t really do it justice, though. If we had a blackboard full of equations and football science, breaking the game down and winning methodically, Reach came in with a bag of spray cans and tagged the board in bright red and white, creating art that the love child of Da Vinci and Tony Yeboah could only dream of.
Hamer launched a long throw (obviously) from the left towards Towler. Jack Shepherd got there first, but his header dropped invitingly to Reach just outside the area. The midfielder struck a superb right-footed volley that crashed in off the underside of the crossbar. It didn’t even hit the floor, and that double bounce, down, up and into the roof of the net had a certain majesty that only comes once in a blue moon.
It did come from Hamer’s long throw, but I do want to underline how much more he is than a great deliverer of the ball from the touchline. It is easy to pigeonhole Hamer as the man with the big throw, but he has been outstanding this season. Nothing is decided after 23 games, I know that, but if there were a player of the season vote right now, he would be one of maybe five that would be in with a shout (Bradley, Reach, McGrandles and Darikwa certainly up there).
From that moment of insanity, the Imps were in complete control. It was the final shot that ended the home side’s resilience, with fans streaming out and a last dice being rolled. David McGoldrick, old enough to remember when Da Vinci was putting on his first exhibition (probably) came on but he isn’t the force he once was. Sure, Barnsley pushed forward in search of a route back into the contest, but City’s work-rate and organisation were exemplary for the whole 90 minutes, and if the best version of the Tykes couldn’t break us down, then the mix of talent they threw on hoping might have an impact were never likely to.
I count the Christmas period as five games, from the one before (Cardiff) to the second game of 2026 (Peterborough). I hoped, from those five games, for seven or eight points. I said that on the podcast because Stockport away and Cardiff at home looked tough. Huddersfield looks like a challenge, and Barnsley were meant to be better. Instead, we’re nine from nine (16 from 18 since losing at Wycombe), and already in credit as far as I’m concerned, with two to play. They’re coming thick and fast, with two more in the next five days, and if we could take three more points, I’d be in dreamland.
That’s greedy. I am in dreamland. I hate making bold predictions because when I do, we seem to respond badly. I asked if we were good after Stevenage at home, and we went four without a win. I worried when we lost 3-0 at Rotherham, and we haven’t lost four since. Part of me doesn’t want to say this, but as a (hopefully) respected authority on Lincoln City, it has to be said.
We’re promotion candidates right here.
Before the season started, it was impossible to tell. I predicted anywhere from 11th to 17th, and not in my wildest dreams did I think top six at Christmas. Top two? Impossible. Utterly impossible. Still, as we well know, impossible is just an opinion, and right now, Michael Skubala and his tightly-organised band of heroes are proving that it is the wrong opinion.
Will the next 23 league games bring enough points for a top-six spot? One would imagine 11 wins from that, 33 points, would just about be enough to secure a play-off spot. 13 wins, 39 points, would push us very close to the top two, with a few draws chucked in. Can we do it?
I don’t know. What I do know is we’re a hell of a lot closer to making fans believe than we were 23 games ago. That’s because we’ve hit this sweet spot between science and art, understanding the hard work that needs to go in before the headlines get written. However, when those headlines do need writing, Adam Reach pops up with a rocket to ensure my job is a little bit easier, as a writer and as a fan.
Up the Imps.