I have to be honest, I didn’t see a world where Lincoln would be above us in the English Football League standings, but a four-point deduction for ourselves, and Lincoln having four points from their opening four games, and here we are. Lincoln have made a decent start to life in the Championship, though it is noticeable that their one win was against Bolton, who they comfortably finished above in last season‘s League 1, when the Imps racked up more than 100 points.

They will stay up or not based on their home form and it didn’t start terribly well this season by losing 3-1 to our neighbours from down the road. Joint managers Tom Shaw and Chris Cohen will be hoping for a better result against the team from the better end of the M27. Chris Cohen is a name who may be familiar to Southampton fans having arrived and then left with Nathan Jones, around that very short and very ill fated spell with the club during the Sport Republic clusterfuck season of 2022/23.

Last season’s Lincoln manager Michael Skubala, ended up as the manager of Bristol City having secured the promotion for the Imps. Him taking that job, maybe tells you that the budget he was given for Lincoln’s championship season, was not one that he felt was sustainable in this division. Bristol City are never shy of throwing a little bit of money around, even though they top job has been a bit of a poisoned chalice over the past few years.

Tonda Eckert has called this game a must win, and it really is if we are serious about automatic promotion this season. Simply put, we should be too good for them but you have to do the basics to allow your better players to shine.

One of the main talking points from the transfer window is that Aaron Ramsdale is still at the club having failed to secure a move away. There is some weird shit coming out at the club about this, namely that Daniel Peretz, George Long and Jamie Jones are secure in their one, two, three ranking amongst our goalkeeping unit. Meanwhile, Rambo, an England international and Champions League experienced goalkeeper, sits in fourth place. This is clearly, absolutely fucking absurd. The only thing I can think of is that they are trying to force him out, which is also mental because not only is he a very good goalkeeper this is a goalkeeper who I know for a fact they were desperate to keep even after we got relegated to the Championship. Time moves on of course and Peretz has proven to be a more than capable replacement but there is such a massive gulf between our number one and number two that there is basically no competition. Surely Peretz plays better if he knows that Rambo is breathing down his neck. Why should it be different for goalkeepers than it is for any other position?

Team news and Tonda has decided to rotate a few with Welington coming in for Manning for starters. Personally I don’t have too much of a problem with this because Manning was absolutely shite against Birmingham and with JWP now in the team instead of Bragg, Manning’s set pieces are not as important. One change that I’m not on board with is to take Nathan Wood out of the partnership with Big Kev, and replacing with Captain Jack, who, on a scale of 1 to 10 this season, has been shit.

Lincoln kick-off with the centre forward flicking the ball up in the air and smashing it skywards so it comes down on the edge of our penalty area. Big Kev, who has probably never seen anything like this in his life, competes with the ball and the ball goes free and the first shot comes in and it’s blocked away for a corner after about four seconds. That is what we are in for today and after four seconds, I am questioning the Jack Stephens selection even more. This won’t be his kind of game.

Lincoln have a big unit up front called Draper. Unlike Draper Tools who provide precision tools, he is a blunt instrument battering ram. He is putting himself about and it is he is first onto the ball after we give it away midfield and lines up a shot from 35 yards which he drags wide of the post. There’s another effort coming in from Street as we again failed to deal with a long ball forward and Peretz saves at the near post.

I don’t know what the fuck we’re doing to be quite honest, but we’re not dealing with anything and another Lincoln cross comes in from their right hand side and it flies right along the 6 yard box and Street, piling at the back stick can’t get a touch.

When Lincoln stop for a second with the Route One stuff and try to play it around, they get themselves into trouble at the back and an errant pass to the goalkeeper Wickens, sees him in a sprint for the ball with Larin and diving on the ground to head it out for a corner, which nothing comes of.

And in no time, we’re back up the other end with more chances coming. Firstly, Adam Reach gets up above Stephens and flicks a header over the bar and then the same player pings an excellent diagonal over to the right hand side and as the cross comes in, House plays an air shot about 10 yards out. We really are not dealing with this at all.

Our play going forward has generally been too slow but Downes and JWP put some energy into it and the ball finds its way out to Scienza on the left and he gets to line up his fullback and cut inside onto his right foot before putting a lovely cross/shot at the far post which is flicked away for a corner in our most dangerous moment so far. Lincoln still look the most likely to score though and House gets up above Welington about 6 yards out to get on the end of another cross, but can only head over the bar.

Saints do begin to get on the ball a little bit more and a knocking out around but in the main, we get to the edge of the area and go nowhere with it when faced with the massed ranks of Lincoln defenders. Then, JWP knocks it sideways to Welington about 35 yards out and some voice in his brain says ‘fuck it, have a go’ and he does, absolutely launching the ball into the top corner, giving the keeper absolutely no chance from all of 35 yards. Absolute thunderbastard.

We still have time before half-time to defend some more aerial onslaught and we don’t do that very well and a shot comes in from Draper which Peretz is forced to shovel over the bar..

Half-time and we’ve had the most possession and we’ve scored a ridiculous goal but the contrast in styles and the fact that Lincoln don’t need loads of possession to create chances means that we need a second goal early in the second half or this is going to get messy come to the end.

Leo seems to have the bit between his teeth as the second half begins and picks up the ball just past halfway and runs directly at the Lincoln defence beating a couple of players before launching it over the bar but that’s the sort of positivity that we need.

Scienza and JWP start a move from deep which sees Larin rumbling towards goal from the right hand side and his eventual effort hits a defender and deflects for a corner. Downes and JWP are linking up well with JWP‘s ability to find space meaning Downes can quite often get his head up and play the ball forwards. On this occasion. JWP finds Scienza on the left and he cuts onto his right foot and takes aim at the far post and it curls around the keeper and it hits the inside of the post, bounces across hits the inside of the other post and drops back to the keeper. Fuck off!.

Tonda decides to get involved on the hour mark and it’s bullshit spreadsheet substitutions as Larin comes off for Obama and ridiculously, Scienza comes off for Edozie. Leo has been our best attacker by a long long way and I bet Lincoln are delighted he’s gone off. Lincoln seem to gain from that instantly and also from the introduction of a bohemoth of a striker called Ladefoged and of course the ball starts raining down on top of our central defenders and we are not dealing with it. An effort over the bar from Bishop and then Ogbene fastens onto a knockdown about 20 yards out and drills it, forcing Peretz to block. The resulting corner comes in and Draper meets the ball with Peretz and we are somewhat fortunate to be given a goal kick. More changes with the anonymous Azaz being replaced by Dobbin and an utterly pointless sub, with Manning coming on for Welington. Why are we taking off the better defensive fullback with fifteen to go.

More bombardment and the ball drops again to Ladefoged, who turns and smashes it over the bar. I guess he’s not terribly good with his feet because he can’t fucking see them because they’re so far away.

That’s the sign for Tonda to completely sound the retreat and on comes Nathan Wood for Matsuki, so we are now going to the back five that we never look particularly comfortable with. Lincoln get down the outside on our right, with Bree completely in dereliction of defensive duty and when the cross comes over there is the big fucker stealing in behind Nathan Wood to head into the net. Fuck sake. How the fuck have you lost a 6 foot 7 striker?.

We have a brief flurry of intent to go and get a second goal but it all falls away on Mubama not being able to trap a bag of cement. When we decide to not use the striker, Manning fires good ball in to Dobbin and he goes for the far post with his right foot and it’s past the keeper but kicked away by a defender. Decent effort to be fair.

Bree gives away a free kick with another shit lazy arse challenge which gives us an opportunity to lose as it means another ball pumped into the box in the final minute which we managed to survive.

Well, what an absolute pile of wank that was. Tonda completely fucked that from start to finish. He needs to learn that you cannot rotate players blindly if the players you are bringing on are nowhere near the level of the players you were taking off. The substitutions today were an absolute shit show. Bringing on Mubama, Edozie and Dobbin just made the team worse. The one that got me was Scienza coming off when he had just really come to life and was very comfortably our biggest threat. Take him off and Put Sam Transfer Request Edozie on instead. What the fuck. Tom Fellows has been in the team recently and at least he wants to be at the club if nothing else, so why the fuck does Sam Edozie get on the pitch? He did fuck all as you’d expect.

Cyle Larin has fitness issues as we all know and he either looks like a thoroughbred or a complete donkey. Even if he’s having one of his donkey games, then replacing him with Mubama is always gonna make things worse. He cannot hold up the ball and the ball just keeps bouncing back. He doesn’t add energy either. Then we come to the substitution burned where Wellington was replaced with Ryan Manning when we were trying to be more defensively solid. Work that one out. And then we have the crowning glory, bringing on Woody so we can go five at the back, instead of taking off Jack Stephens, who spent most of the game not winning any headers and generally being passive. Needless to say, we concded the goal against virtually within a few minutes of the retreat being sounded. Absolute dog shit and an object lesson in absolutely playing into the other team‘s hands. What do you do against a team that just wants to lump the ball in your box? You keep the ball, you defend with intensity to stop the crosses, you compete for everything and get players around the dropping ball. Not us though. We retreat back to the penalty spot and let them cross it at the 7 foot striker.

The goal conceded was another collective fuck up. We are playing a back 5. Bree is absolutely nowhere and out of the game when the cross comes in from his side. The closest player to stopping the cross is Downes, who is coverng, bit not close enough. The right centre back is Stephens, who should be out there if Bree is ahead of the game, but he’s passive and not affecting play at all. Finally, Wood loses his man, who scores. To be fair, its a great cross and Lincoln deserved a point, at least.

There’s been a lot to talk about our transfer window and whether we are better or worse than last year. At the levels that the players are playing out at the moment we are comfortably worse. Mubama and Dobbin may come good but it doesn’t look like it at the moment. Defensively, we are pinning our hopes on Zach Abbott being as good as Nottingham Forest say he is because if he isn’t, we are always gonna have one out of Wood or Stephens in the team and with Tonda’s current mindset, we are certainly going to be seeing the disaster that is our captain at regular intervals. Woody may improve with regular games but Jack will not. Kevin Schlotterbeck, was said to not be the THB replacement when he came in, but he clearly is and is clearly going to be leading the defence.

There were a few positives today with Scienza looking lively, especially in that second half and being desperately unlucky not to score when he managed to hit both posts. Matsuki played some great stuff in the first half as well and he was the one always trying to inject some pace into our forward play – he was dreadful in the second half however. JWP and Flynn Downes looks like a good partnership for the centre of midfield, as you knew it was going to be. And then there was Welington and the Thunderbastard. What a fucking goal.

Tonda may well say that he trusts everyone in the squad but there comes a point when you have to recognise when some of these players are not playing well and are not going to do a job for you. Last year he could rotate Cyle Larin and Ross Stewart, or rotate Casper Jander and Shea Charles and the level of the team would not drop off when the substitutions happened. Last year you got a player who was just as good as the one coming off and who was fresher. That simply not the case this season so the manager has his work cut out more. Last year during the long run he barely rotated the defence at all and barely made substitutions. It was THB, Bree and Manning and then it was Stephens until he got injured and Wood after he did. Tonda can say he trusts Stephens and I get that but he is nowhere near the levels of last season and the team is worse when he is in it. He can say he trusts Mubama and Dobbin but these are players who did okay with mid-table championship sides last year and a few months later, they have not proven yet that they can step up to a team but wants to be near the top of the table. I’d rather have the Lincoln striker Draper, who at least had energy and occupied defenders and was a handful. Pain in the arse but useful.

With our away form being pretty shit so far this season, it is with great delight. I noticed that we are at home again on Tuesday night against Swansea. They might be up at the top of the League so far, but then, so were Millwall. Bring it on.