A weekend that Chris Sutton will be keen to rid from the memory after his Lincoln side lost their third game in seven days, losing 2-0 at home against Torquay.
After the full time whistle had blown manager Sutton decided to stay in the dressing room to give an extended team talk, while assistant manager Ian Pearce gave his reaction to the press.
Pearce, a former centre half for West Ham felt hugely disappointed to lose a third straight game but believed that the Imps should have taken chances when on top in the first half.
He said: “We were playing some good stuff, creating chances and then they go down the other end, have one free kick where they score from. That then put us on the back foot and we’re chasing the game again.
“If we had a little bit of luck and scored a goal, it would’ve been a totally different game. But that’s football and we could be stood here saying ‘what if?’ ‘what if?’ They’ve beaten us 2-0.”
BBC Lincolnshire’s Michael Hortin raised the issue of defending from set pieces and how even after the summer training City still conceded an easy goal from a dead ball situation.
Pearce responded admitting that the quality himself and boss Sutton had set, was not being met in these problem areas.
“We’re fully aware of what we expect and the standards we’ve set and unfortunately we’re not achieving them at the moment.
“We can’t go on conceding from set pieces, we need to tighten up on that [and] it’s an element that has to go out of our game.”
The assistant manager still feels that the game plan is correct but also thinks that a little bit of luck is needed to get off the mark this season.
A disgruntled Pearce said: “We set out to try and play a high tempo game and get on the front foot, we’re at home, we want to try and take it to them and make sure that we take the game forward. If one of those goes in I think it needs to fly off someone’s backside or something that changes our fortune.
“We’re fully aware of what’s expected and the standards that we set and unfortunately we’re not achieving it at the moment.”
The Torquay squad and associates however, were travelling back down the M1 on Saturday night with beaming smiles across their faces, none more so than manager Paul Buckle.
“This is a fantastic result, this is a tough, tough place to come and we’ve had everything today. We’ve scored two very good goals and kept a clean sheet again.
“I don’t know what the record is now but I think it’s nine games we’ve gone without conceding a goal [in the league] and the players have carried on from where they left off last season. So, we’re absolutely thrilled and thought we played some good football as well, some good passing football second half and we controlled the game.”
Just under 3000 home fans saw City’s defeat on Saturday and two fans share two completely different views. Paul, from Lincoln felt that with ex-Premier League footballers at the helm surely something can be done to stop the rot.
He said: “They’ve got Ian Pearce who’s employed to get results along with Chris Sutton and he’s on the sidelines.
“The two centre backs at times looked poor, certainly Moses Swaibu didn’t look to me like a centre half. Yet they’ve got Pearce who’s played all those games in the Premiership who could add a bit of stability who should give influence, but it’s not happening.”
Another Imps fan countered this point and simply thought that Torquay were just to good on the day.
David from Grantham said: “I think they were just better than we were all round really. I think everybody gave their best, don’t think we really had anybody who could put the ball in today.
“I just think they need to work a bit harder and see how we go. I think Jamie Clapham could come in and add a bit of stability, but that’s the only person I’d put in.”