Sunderland travelled to Sincil Bank and produced another defensive shut-out but fired a number of chances just wide and consequently failed to score. For a neutral, it was probably as entertaining a 0-0 as you're likely to see, but as a Sunderland fan it was frustrating in the extreme as Roberts and Clarke danced down either wing but neither could create a clear-cut chance. As at Charlton, we had enough efforts that have won convincingly, but we needed the posts to be a yard further apart.
It was a mixture of sun and fog as we left the land of the Prince Bishops, but sunny delight when we arrived in Lincoln. We met up in the Still, moved slightly uphill to the Cardinal's Hat, and sat in the window to watch the world go by and pick the team. Luckily we'd remembered the disorganisation at the away turnstiles, and allowed enough time to get in, but only just. What on earth Lincoln do to create such chaos is beyond me, but somehow they managed it yet again. Someone, perhaps so frustrated by the lack of order, had stuck a match ticket on the fence and presumably given up and gone to the pub.
Our choices for the starting eleven were off the mark as we lined up:
Patterson
Winchester Wright Cirkin
Gooch Evans Neil O'Nien
Clarke Stewart Roberts
...well, sort of. Lincoln made us defend the far end, we worked out that our bench was Hoffmann, Dajaku, Matete, Hume, Defoe, Doyle, and Embleton... and we were off, with the added complication of playing a side in red and white that featured Chris Maguire. I don't think I was the only one who thought Matete was a bit unfortunate not to start, but I'm not picking the team.
The home fans had two drums and an idiot who spent 90% of the game facing away from the pitch trying to encourage noise. They should therefore be banned from all competitions until said drums are set alight and shoved where the sun doesn't shine. With whatever noise they did generate monotonously following the drums, it didn’t inspire their team to do much apart from a very early ball into the box which Patto was alert enough to get to first, and we fairly quickly established ourselves as the team most likely to dominate possession. Clarke was seeing plenty of the ball and wasn’t adverse to taking on his fullback, and while Roberts did the same on the other flank, their main target, Stewart, is a big fella and the Imps had obviously been told to keep close to him, giving our wide men little to aim at.
With those two keeping the fullbacks on their toes, Gooch and Cirkin got the odd chance to break forward, and the latter skipped past several opponents and was probably as surprised as anybody when he arrived at the edge of the box. We were sort of hopping he’d do a Chris Makin and slip it past the keeper, but the defence had woken up and forced him to turn it to Gooch, and O’Nien had charged into a decent position but his header was off target. There was a much better chance from the other side when Gooch ran at the defence again – much more like the old Goochy when he doesn’t receive the ball facing our own goal and doesn’t have to turn – but when he cut it back to Neil, and with us ready to celebrate a similar finish to the last game, Neil leant back and placed his shot way over the top. Should have been 1-0.
As we approached the quarter hour things were looking very positive, but the goal wouldn’t come. Roberts, darting about like Stan Cummins reincarnated, was almost on hand to get on the end of Clarke’s cross, but there’s a downside to being only five foot six in that your legs aren’t quite long enough in such situations. That miss seemed to give the Imps a bit of confidence and they started to get a few passes together, but almost gifted us the opener when a defender fell over and Clarke whipped across a shot – a foot wide of the keeper’s left hand post. That was the first of a series of efforts that peppered the rest of our game as we pinged shots just wide of either post but no between them. It was getting a bit like Charlton, with us creating several half-decent chances but not making the keeper do anything other than take crosses.
There was a single added minute, and we went in for the half-time cuppa with the fans, and I hope the players too, rueing so many opportunities but an underworked opposing keeper.
No changes for the second half, and we set away in decent style, and when Clarke made space for a cross, we willed Stewart to stretch enough to turn it in, but even his Inspector Gadget frame couldn’t quite make it. It seemed like every Sunderland attack produced something that was nearly but not quite, and VAR would surely have given us a penalty as Roberts virtually dragged his marker into the box thanks to that opponent hanging onto his arm in very obvious (to all but the officials) fashion. Nevertheless, he rolled it back to Evans only to see the shot fly off the outside of the post. Roberts was clearly still fuming when he next got the ball, and ran straight at the defence in the centre, making opponents commit themselves and thus leaving a big hole for Clarke to receive the ball in. 1-0, surely… but yet again the shot flashed across and wide of the far post. How many more times, Lads?
On came Dajaku and Defoe, with Neil and Clarke going off, as the gaffer tried some more straightforward support for Stewart for the last quarter hour, and after a couple of warm-up touches and nice lay-offs, Defoe turned his mad and opened up the space to shoot. Again, we readied ourselves for celebration, but the right foot effort was sort of scuffed and for the umpteenth time the ball flew the wrong side of the post. Aw, Jermain, man! It didn’t even look that convincing. It was looking more and more like another goal-free afternoon, but our hearts were in our mouths when Lincoln got the ball in the box and a header looked goal-bound – but Patto’s hands were up in a flash to swat the ball away. Cracking save, Lad. Evans was adjudged to have been a bit late with a tackle on the halfway line, and was booked – a bit unfortunate, I thought. Maguire, roundly Booed at every touch, was trying all sorts of little flicks and crossfield balls as he obviously relished the abuse he was getting. It’s not as if we don’t know what makes him tick, but he was taking it all with a great big smile on his face.
With five to go, Doyle came on for Gooch as the gaffer must have thought “let’s make sure we keep the one point “as their right winger was starting to give us some problems and making Cirkin and Wright work hard to protect our goal. However, it was us who came the closest to breaking the deadlock when Evans got forward again and hit one from distance that had the keeper making a fairly standard save. I’m not sure how many added minutes there were – not many by this week’s standards, and nobody had tied themselves to any part of the goal – but we almost snatched it through Stewart. For the first time of the afternoon he managed to get far enough away from his markers to get in what looked like a killer header – but once again, as we tensed ourselves to celebrate, the keeper somehow got to it.
And that was that. A point’s a point, and there was another clean sheet, but at this stage of this campaign, we need to be winning. Not just winning “games like this” but winning each and every game. Rotherham might have got beaten at home, but they’re too far ahead for us to worry, and other teams have games in hand. We have to find a way to make at least some of all those chances and half chances count. As I said at the top of the page, a neutral would probably have enjoyed it, and, taking off my Sunderland-tinted specs, there was a fair bit about our general pay that was nice to watch. Unfortunately, “nice to watch” doesn’t always win games unless you’re Liverpool or Man City – and that, we’re not.
Man of the Match? Either Clarke or Roberts, as their areas are where most of our dangerous play came from. Based on the fact that he played fifteen minutes more than Clarke, I’ll give it to Roberts.
On leaving the ground, we asked a steward where our coaches were. “They might be down there, or down there, or at the station”. Marvellous. At least when I found it (at the station) we had to wait for the stragglers and had time to watch one of the most pathetic “fights” ever. There were more windmills than in Holland, and I think even the polis left them to it to see if either would even actually land a punch. I know it’s not big and it’s not clever, but man – it was funny to watch.
