Day 36

Three Lincoln players were named in the Team of the Week—Anyon, Bore, and Olembé. Awesome. I hope they appear many more times as the season progresses.

I found myself in something of a predicament today. Shuker wasn't fit to start, and Taylor was off on international duty. Laurent is still on the long-term injury list, while Russell is nowhere near fit. This left me with four non-ideal choices—push Bore up the pitch, bringing in a replacement in defence; play somebody out of position of the right flank; draft in Jake Sheridan, who needs to play a more advanced right-wing role and is barely up to the standard; or change formation.

After some toing and froing, I settled on the first option: Bore pushed up to right midfield and Robson came in at right back. Shuker took a place on the bench, intended as a last resort substitute. Otherwise we were unchanged from the side that beat Telford.

Marques was once again picked by the match pundit as our key man; I felt confused and angered when I saw their key man is Danny Hone—a Lincoln player on loan at Barrow. Why would you loan a player to a club in the same division and not stipulate in the contract that they cannot play against you? Idiocy.

The first fifteen minutes were terrible. Neither team managed to keep possession or mount any sort of attack. Then we started trading blows. Barnes-Homer was our first man to go close, as their right winger Paul Rutherford started to threaten.

Smith picked up an injury right at the death of the first half, and had to be substituted. You wouldn't have known he was on the pitch anyway—the lad was completely anonymous.

The second half began with more gusto. Christophe tried to release speedy substitute Niall Rodney, then up the other end Barrow mounted a strong attack before striker Lyle Taylor was stretchered off with an injury.

Rodney went close from a free kick on 68 minutes, as we started to exploit the wings for a little more room to attack.

Hurst tipped a goal-bound strike wide from Barnes-Homer in the 78th minute, and the game continued to open up. Olembé wasted a chance to take the lead three minutes later when he headed Robson's excellent cross straight at the goalkeeper. Then Bore beat his man to race to the touchline and win our fifth corner. But still we couldn't score.

A mishit cross from Robson had to be knocked behind by the keeper in the dying stages of injury time. Marques was fouled by Owen on the resulting corner, earning us a penalty—which Nutter duly dispatched. We won 1-0.

Marques took man of the match; our defenders were the only good performers on the park.

That scrappy win puts Lincoln on top of the table after two games, thanks to goal difference.

The verdict on Smith's injury is bad. I had to choose between spending £500 to send him to a specialist for three months or let the physio treat him for a lay-off of six or seven months. When you consider that he earns £500 a week, it's a no-brainer—we'd be spending a lot more than £500 on him to keep treatment in house. But that's a lengthy spell on the sidelines. The Koroma or Fernández decision just got a whole lot more important and time-critical.

The Under 18s won their friendly against Worksop 3-0, with stand-out performances by Weaver and Rice.