God awful City are well beaten by Chesterfield

By Nathan Jackson
March 7 2008

Lincoln City put in one of their worst performances of the season in a 4-1 defeat at Chesterfield. The Imps were well and truly outplayed by a team who didn't even have to try that hard. Ben Wright scored the Imps goal but you'd have been hard pushed to find any other contributions he made and his performance typified the Imps recently.

The game started as it would continue as Jack Lester found himself behind the Imps defence. Marriott raced out of the net but he could only watch the striker shoot goalwards, thankfully for the Imps it went well wide of the target. Brown headed into the arms of Roche before Lennel John-Lewis was quickly taken off and replaced with Ben Wright as the converted right-midfielder appeared to pull a muscle in his leg.

Brown fired wide with City's first shot before Winter broke free of the Imps defence. He looked certain to score but a good Marriott save kept him out. Roche easily claimed several City chances but it was a very slow game indeed. Lester and Marriott appeared to get into a tangle with the latter being injured in the process, recieving several minutes of treatment.

A few minutes later and Marriott was hurting in a different way as Spirites pressure resulted in Kerry shoothing home from around 10 yards out. Winter found himself through again but this time he could direct his shot on target.

The rest of the half played out with neither side creating another decent goalscoring opportunity.

Lester alledgedly elbowed Green before making a telling contribtuion. He danced through several City defenders as no-one seemed interested in taking the ball off of him. He found himself one-on-one with Marriott and coolly slotted home from just a few yards out.

A Ben Wright cross was dealt with well by Kovacs. However, City suddenly, and very briefly, got back into the game as a Dodds ball went over everyone and found Ben Wright at the back post. The striker had a very easy chance as it was an open goal from less than a yard and he made no mistake by putting it into the net.

City broke from the restart but then Chesterfield produced a fine counter attack to see Lester yet again dance through out defence without a chance, he teed up Leven and the midfielder struck a low shot past Marriott and it was effectively game over.

Dodds had a chance denied by Kovacs again before Ward and Fletcher came on for Dowson and Lester. Another Kovacs challege denied Dodds again before Warlow replacedForrester for the Imps.

The fourth goal was simplicity itself as former City target, Jamie Ward, rounded Marriott and played the ball to Kerry, much like Wright earlier he had an open goal to aim at and tapped it in with no problem whatsoever.

Hartley shot just over from 40 yards following a free kick on the edge of the box falling to him.

Neither side could create anymore chances and the Imps were well beaten on the back of one of their worst performances of the season.