Jack Lester punishes lacklusture Imps

By Nathan Jackson
November 6 2007

Jack Lester ran rings around a very poor City defence as City yet again failed to register even a point. A poor City side lacking in quality were caught easily on the counter attack 4 times against a very impressive Chesterfield side, and now there's no messing about with alphabetical order as the Imps are now rock bottom. It's looking like it's going to be a long hard winter for City fans.

The visitors kicked off the game and won a quick free kick. City easily cleared the set piece out for a corner, which also came to nothing. Jamie Ward, a striker formerly a target of the Imps, was the next to cause the Imps a problem when his drive from a narrow angle tested Marriott. Freck had City's first chance with a tame attempt towards Loach.

Jack Lester then proved his quality thanks to a stunning volley past Marriott followed a Ward ball into the box, and Chesterfield were 1-0 up.

N'Guessan won a corner 2 minutes later, the ball was floated in towards Bencharif and the onloan defender headed back across goal, the ball falling to N'Guessan but he failed to control it and ended up tamely tapping into the goalkeeper's hands.

City were made to pay for N'Guessan's lack of skill as Lester made it 2-0. He ran around several defenders who seemed very reluctant to make a challenge and had a simple challege of putting City 2-0 down. Ward came close to making it 3-0 as the Imps looked like capitulating.

Ward had Chesterfield's next attempt as he latched onto a ball over the top and came within inches of lobbing Marriott. The Spirites were soon fortunate to keep 11 men on the field as Torpey was set free by a clever bit of build up play, he was tackled from behind with no contact on the ball, Kovacs was booked for the challenge despite being the final defender.

Jamie Hand continued his incredibly poor form since joining the Imps when he was easily caught by Lester and the former Forest man slotted past an onrushing Marriott to make it 3-0.

City pulled one back undeservedly when N'Guessan's shot took a heavy deflection and trickled into the net. That was the final action of a first half where City would have easily found themselves losing by 5 or 6 goals.

Forrester and Wright replaced Hand and Torpey at half time but it was much the same as Chestsrfiedl controlled the early play, with Lester coming within a lick of paint of his 4th of the night.

Wright headed over from a Croft cross before Chesterfield took the ball down the other end and win a corner. It found it's way to Kovacs and he somehow managed to sneak the ball in at the far post from a near impossible angle. City quickly pulled another back as Bencharif headed in Freck's cross.

Fletcher and Gray came on for Bastians and Ward before Kerr was booked for a challenge on Niven. N'Guessan and Leven were both lucky to escape with yellow cards are a mini-fight after a foul. Picken came on for O'Hare and that was the final piece of note-worthy action.