***Lincoln City Official Matchday Thread***

Well I didn't expect much today against a decent team (and 3 ex reds). Luckily results again went our way and it's another week closer to the end of the season.

No doubt Stephen will try to persuade us this is all a roaring success, but it really has all been a massive disappointment with our absentee owner and his willing amateurs managing to turn a top 10 budget into a relegation scuffle.

You can argue that Cioffi needs a chance to build his own team, and that is a fair point. However I'm struggling to see how that is going to happen, as to my knowledge most of the squad are under contract for next season. Ok we may end up selling Palmer and Sesay but I'm struggling to see much scope for movement and freshening things up.

Sadly the rumours of a takeover have dried up but a change of direction is needed off the field as well as on it.

Sadly I couldn't get along to the game today to support the boys which as expected was a very tough game against a team top of the league and in form.

The sooner this season is over the better as we are very much in no man's land. Nothing to play for and several players clearly not in the managers radar...I hope Mr Cioffi is given some funds to get some of the players he would like so we can judge him fairly.

One last point could anyone quote where I have said the season has been a roaring success.? I believe it is better to try and find the postive in situations as living in cold dark shells of pessimism, cynicism and continual fault finding is such a waste of a life...!!

I agree I didn’t expect much from today but why wait until we are 2-0 down to make a sub and then it’s only like for like, not formation or game plan change. Cioffi is obsessed with a back 3 with Sessay on the left when he is clearly better on the right. It doesn’t work, if we can see it why can’t he? What’s wrong with a back 4 with Sessay on the right and Maguire on the left and the rediculous playing goal kicks short which immediately puts us under pressure the players are obviously under orders.
I’m sorry I hate the constant manager merry go round but I really think it’s time for Cioffi to go.

Thought Lincoln were - in a word - STRONG, they bossed us.

Our forwards were always isolated & our only real chances came when we carried the ball into their area.

Individuals tried hard, but our collective play was very rarely cohesive enough against a side who never gave us any time or space.

We really need to put a few more days training into taking & defending set-plays.

I know people keep going on about the manager needs to go...but the simple truth is this.

We need an injection of £1 million a season to stand still. Yes stand still.Because our gates are so poor. Our gates are so poor because our results are poor.So we get what we can afford. And that means Gaby

Lincoln were better than us in every department. But they've had that cash injection and are clearly using it wisely

We are a side who will hit and miss until that cash injection becomes £2 million. I genuinely felt our players tried today. They just aren't as good. Dallison was awful.Others were pretty abject and I can see why Palmer looks fed up. Willock, Grego-Cox and Panuche all had proper chances to shoot today from outside the box. But they won't - instead trying to weave it into the box so that Palmer could score a tap in. But the more passes you make the more likely the move is to break down.

The goals - the third was awful defending. Actually it wasn't because there wasn't any defending

The first shouldn't have been awarded. A clear holding foul on Dannie Bulman in the box prior when he was likely to be able to break and stop the ball from going for a throw in. From that throw in they cross it and executed the finish really well

The problem with Crawley for me at the moment is that there does not seem to be an effective game plan. In the first half yesterday Gabby and the two coaches were giving instructions but in the second half the coaches had disappeared and Gabby was standing there on his own and seemingly frozen to the spot like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights.

Over several matches the number of shots by Crawley players has been abysmally low and the number of shots on target even worse so it is hardly surprising that results have been so poor.

There is very little to get excited about watching Crawley. Yesterday there were only two incidents of note, the first when Young put a cross in that was just out of reach for Palmer and the second when Camara blazed over the bar. I could have happily slept through the rest of the match and not missed anything positive.

I don't agree with the comments about Palmer. He made a few runs with the ball in dangerous positions but the service and support he gets is very poor. Grego-Cox is a willing worker but not yet up to L2 standard.

And the substitutions yesterday made no sense to me - and came too late make a difference anyway.

Luckily we have few points in the bag for this season but if this form is carried in to next season then we surely must be favourites to go down.

I thought we did ok in the first half. Not so good in the second and it was disappointing that Cioffi didn’t try something different when the inevitable second goal had been coming a while.

But no one can say early subs would have made a difference, Lincoln were very clinical and will be champions easily.

I don’t think this was a day for a big slag off. While not at our best we weren’t awful either and if Camera’s shot had gone in, we could have snatched something