Omar Koroma was fit, however, and the talented striker replaced Ben May in attack—all set for his 25th Lincoln appearance. Kanouté and Diagouraga also dropped out of the side. Bore and Woods replaced them. I expect Kanouté will only miss the one match—he needs a rest, but I’ve been so impressed by him lately that I consider the young defender my first-choice right back. Sam Smith made the bench for the first time in a month.
Fleetwood went close after just 39 seconds. Striker Magno Vieira found himself in a one-on-one against Putnins. My keeper stood strong and tall, and Vieira couldn’t slide his shot through—Putnins parried it out for a corner.
Back and forth, we traded blows. Shuker and Woods managed the best of our chances, while Vardy and Magno Vieira kept my defence busy. But it was Barnes-Homer who next looked likely to score. The striker snaked in behind the Fleetwood defence, then slipped his shot past the keeper…and unfortunately just on the wrong side of the post. It was a nervy, entertaining first half. I demanded a better, more secure second period from my players.
Nothing changed. Both teams caused problems for each other, and I worried about our inability to control the play. Several times, Fleetwood broke through my defence. Then disaster struck in bizarre circumstances. A poor clearance got knocked back to the edge of our defensive area. Bore beat goalkeeper Elvijs Putnins and Fleetwood striker Magno Vieira to the ball, but he only managed to send it goalwards. Putnins raced back, and he appeared to grab it safely. But he fumbled the ball, and it spilled out. He dived on it again, but this time only managed to bundle it over the line. Fleetwood had the lead, with less than 15 minutes remaining.
We threw caution to the wind and desperately sought an equaliser. Koroma had a shot stifled at close-range, then substitute John Nutter tried to chip the keeper. On 82 minutes we won a free kick just outside the box. Shuker put his shot inches over the crossbar. Substitute striker Sam Smith scored a minute later, but it was disallowed for offside.
I looked on in disbelief as an exhausted-looking Fleetwood side held on for dear life. Luck was clearly on their side, as 50-50 challenges and ricochets always turned to their favour. My players weren’t helping matters by giving possession away cheaply, however. In the end we lost the scrappiest match I’ve seen in months. How could two skilled, in-form teams play such terrible football? It was action-packed, sure, but the passing was woeful from both sides.
I threw some chairs and told them it was unacceptable. We’ve come too far to throw away the championship with performances like that. Mansfield are now three points behind; Wrexham trail us by 12 points, but with four games in hand. If they win all four, we will be top only by goal difference. We can’t keep dropping points.
Will the return of Olembé fix things? I hope so. Nine games to go. Anything less than first place at the end will be unacceptable, after we topped the league for so long.
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