09 January 2021

Michael Appleton frustrated as Lincoln held by Peterborough

09 January 2021

Lincoln boss Michael Appleton was frustrated not to have come away with three points after the 1-1 draw with promotion rivals Peterborough.

Visitors Posh dominated the early stages, taking the lead through TJ Eyoma’s own goal on 10 minutes.

But Appleton’s league leaders dominated the second half and equalised through Anthony Scully four minutes after the break.

The Imps were awarded a penalty midway through the second half when Nathan Thompson handled in the box, with the Posh defender being dismissed after receiving his second yellow card.

However, Lincoln talisman Jorge Grant put the penalty wide and despite near constant pressure City could not find a winning goal.

“It is (two points dropped),” said Appleton, who only returned to the club on Friday after suffering from Covid-19 and serving a period of self-isolation.

“There’s a little bit of frustration. I’ve got no doubt I’ll wake up tomorrow with the same bit of frustration inside me but I’ll also be delighted with the performance.

“I thought in the first 15 minutes or so we were slow, we didn’t get out of the blocks and we forgot to press the ball.

“I thought they came out the blocks well but we were too concentrated on the shape we had rather than going to press the ball.

“To be fair, I only worked with them for the first time in 10 days yesterday. Maybe, if we’d had a little bit more prep, it might have been a bit different.

“After that early period I thought we were excellent. We came out of the blocks well in the second half and were dominating the game against 11 players, never mind against 10.

“I’m delighted with the performance. We just didn’t have that clinical edge that you sometimes need to win a game. Having said that, we made them work really hard. The keeper (Christy Pym) made a couple of vital saves and they put some really good blocks in which helped them get a point.”

Aside from his penalty miss, Grant turned in an excellent performance and Appleton added: “That was the only mistake he made in the game.

“You could argue it was a big mistake but we’ll be asking him to step up and take that responsibility again because we will get penalties.”

Peterborough manager Darren Ferguson was happy with a point but felt his side should have killed the game off at 1-0.

He said: “I thought our organisation with 10 men was very good and we had the outlet with young Ricky (Jade-Jones, who came on with 20 minutes left), which was a real plus.

“They had one or two opportunities of course, you expect that when they’ve got a man extra.

“I thought we started the game really well but we can’t concede a goal from a set-piece like that. That’s not good enough, we have to stop that.

“That changes the game because we knew we had Ricky up our sleeve for the counter-attack late in the game, then all of a sudden we lose a goal in the first five minutes of the second half. That was the turning point.”

Ferguson felt his side were not ruthless enough at 1-0 but acknowledged the quality of Lincoln and expects both sides to be in the mix for promotion at the end of the season.

“I thought at 1-0 we had them,” he said. “We just didn’t kill them off. When you’re leading, you need to be ruthless.

“Don’t get me wrong, Michael has got a good team here, but we weren’t ruthless enough.

“It was a good game between two good teams who will be up there, there’s no doubt about it.”

After a near month-long lay-off, Posh face two games a week for virtually the rest of the season.

Ferguson added: “It’s the world we’re in. To be honest, it’s a bit scary at the moment. The games are coming thick and fast, we’ve just got to get on with it.

“But we dug out a result and it was important we got something today.”

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