Reaction to the Morecambe defeat

Lincoln's trip to Morecambe saw yet another poor performance from the Imps and we're slowly starting to get dragged back into a relegation battle. Despite initially winning 2 games, Chris Sutton is starting to lose some fans and even a few players, so much so that the players didn't care that they were 3-0 down at one point and laughed about it.

Well it's near enough exactly a month since Sutton was announced as the new manager of the Imps and all I can say is.....I'm worried. The performance against Aldershot was good and although Aldershot had some decent chances themselves, City definitely deserved the win, but since then there has been four very, very poor performances. Yes, we won at Macc but that doesn't change a very poor performance. Two wins from two though and no-one was majorly complaining, but that's changed.

We've now put in three of the most lethargic, spineless and unambitious performances you're likely to see in recent seasons. At Northampton we probably did deserve a point, but didn't make our limited chances count and Northampton took their only one. The game against Torquay was just plain bad and today was worse.

It wasn't just the defeat, it wasn't the extremely dodgy goal, it was that even though we were three down before the hour, half the squad we still smiling, laughing and sharing a joke. I'm sorry, but if you're 3-0 down then you've got more to worry about than making your team-mates laugh. It wasn't even as if it was an even game, Morecambe destroyed the Imps and we couldn't have complained if Morecambe had reached double figures, it was that one sided.

The tactics simply aren't working. I was surprised to see a 4-4-2 but when you've got a player who needs all the space and time in the world (Fagan) and a player who doesn't work for it (Howe) then you're never going to score goals. Yes, Howe scored today, but the fact he has only scored from open play in two games this season tells it's own story. Our usual formation of 4-5-1 is also going to cause very few problems. It's definitely not solid enough at the back given how many chances that Torquay created and isn't going to cause anyone problems.

Teams now come to Sincil Bank and know that there is a great chance of them getting at least a point, most teams will also see where we are in the season and see anything less than a win as underachieving, a true sign that this club has gone backwards.

Bringing in this many loan players is also dangerous. Players such as Scott Kerr have been happily telling fans that he and the other former regular first team players aren't getting a look in due to the numerous loan players (not a bad thing in some cases), a dangerous tactic given that some of the loan players aren't good enough. I'm not even going to get started on how atrociously crap Pulis is, Joe Heath might as well not be here, the aforementioned issues with how and now that Lichaj is out for three games, the only loanees who look worth their time at the club are Torres and Watt. At the end of the day, it's a dangerous thing to have this many loanees because you are inevitably going to be left with the permanent players, half of whom will have no motivation to play for a manager who clearly doesn't rate them.

Let's make no mistake about it, we are slowly getting back involved in the relegation battle and we can't keep on relying on both Darlington and Grimsby fucking up, especially as we play the latter in three weeks.