The Imps’ boss Michael Appleton was delighted with his side’s performance against Oxford United this afternoon as they tasted victory at LNER Stadium in the EFL League One season opener.
Goals from Anthony Scully and Adam Jackson brought City the victory but Michael said it was a tough test against a side who he fully expects to be in and around the promotion places at the end of the season.
“Don’t underestimate how difficult that start was, we’ve come up against a side who I expect to finish in the top two or three and my opinion hasn’t changed. We knew it was going to be difficult but I thought we managed the game really well, we did our work we knew what was expected.
“I think in the first half we punished them once and we should have punished them more, we set traps for them in the middle of the park and certainly did that more in the first half than in the second but in that second half there were things that we can do better when we get into 3v2 positions.
“It’s great we kept a clean sheet, it’s great that we scored a couple of goals in the game and it’s a platform to build on going forward.”
The goal from Jackson was something that the manager was particularly pleased with as he said it was a personal challenge from him to his summer recruit as he joined from Hibernian but he was also pleased with how his side stayed organised and played to the plan worked on ahead of kick off.
“I spoke about it when we signed him, Adam he had scored a few goals for Hibs and I did challenge him the first time I spoke to him. I told him he didn’t score enough goals for the areas and positions that he gets himself into and he certainly did that today.
He continued: “We said before the game that possession doesn’t win you a game of football and we knew they’d have more of that today and they have lots of possession in the middle third of the pitch. That’s the key thing for us it’s about recognising when we can keep the ball and when we look to try and score goals and we worked really hard in pre-season, I think in some of the games we had were good because it allowed us to do what we needed to and I think today was a good example of the players being organised and committed to their roles to see the job through.
“It was a team performance there were so many good things, it was one of those performances you need to be able to build on.”
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