By Nathan Jackson
September 25 2010

For three days shy of one year, Chris Sutton has been in charge of this football club. In that time he has managed 50 matches and 24 of those have ended in defeats, compared to just fourteen victories, two of which came against sides from the Blue Square North.

 All managers are remembered by one aspect only, wins. John Schofield did well with 24 wins in 64 games (37.5%) in all competitions, Peter Jackson got 26 in 79 games (32.91%) in all competitions, whereas Chris Sutton has gained just 14 victories in 50 games, a dismal 28%. Anyone who thinks that is a good record quite frankly has no footballing intelligence whatsoever. What you may also notice in the above table is that despite playing 14 games fewer than Schofield, Sutton's Lincoln has failed to score four more times than Schofield's sides.

I'm sick of saying this but Sutton is not a good manager, spin it anyway you want but the results aren't good enough by any stretch of the imagination. Who to blame? Is it Bob Dorrian? Steff Wright? Joe Anderson? Paul Mayo? No, the blame falls firmly at the feet of Chris Sutton.

There are those who believe that this season is the first time that Sutton has had his squad to play with, however, that is literally not the case. Sutton has had his squad since October last year. The first thing Sutton did was to bring in all of his loanees, so much to the point where half of the outfield squad were his players before it had even turned November, so all those who used the "it's not his squad" argument were automatically wrong.

The problem is that the vast majority of the players that Sutton has brought to this club have been awful. For every Somma there's an Uwezu, for every Herd there's a Smith, for every Saunders there's a Anthony Pulis, I could continue for another two or three players before running out of the good players, but still with plenty of poor players to spare. However, none of that mattered this season as some claimed that Sutton would finally get to bring in a squad full of his own players, however, it didn't quite go to plan.

The incoming players seemed good and were amongst the better players from the teams around us at the end of last season, but the problem was that Sutton was seemingly convinced he was going to get Sutton and didn't concentrate hard enough on getting any other strikers in and we ended up with Drewe Broughton and Delroy Facey. Now, I love the effort that both, especially Facey, put in, but they have played 32 games between them for this club and scored just once.....ONCE!!!!! For strikers that have a manager who scored a lot of goals in his career in charge of them, that sort of record is shocking.

Say what you want about Peter Jackson, but he knew how to get strikers scoring. Ben Wright got his first chance under Jackson and scored 15 times in his first season, Adrian Patulea was also the leading goalscorer under Jackson and he also restored Jamie Forrester's goalscoring record after he had endured a poor start to the 2007/8 season. What has Sutton done? He bought Davide Somma to this club, which to be fair was a good signing, but other than that he has not bought on striker to this club capable of scoring goals.

However, the worst part of it all is Sutton's insistance on playing 4-5-1, even at home. 4-5-1 is designed to be an awkward formation, one that makes it difficult for the opposition to break you down. However, this makes for increasingly dull games as the opposition can't attack and when City get the ball, you can't drive forward as you've only got one striker up there and you can't link the play. Look at the Stevenage game for example, the ball was lumped up to Ben Hutchinson and he wins the header, however the ball rolls harmlessly away as no Lincoln player is up to challenge for the flick on.

Then there's the problem with the set pieces. If booting a set-piece at either the first defender or over everyone was an artform, then Lincoln would be the Vincent Van Gogh of it. Granted, the inability to take a decent set piece has been at this club for a few years now, but it's just absolutely shocking when a professional footballer can't get a football off of the ground.

So how much longer does Sutton realistically have? He said just over two weeks ago that the ten games ahead should yeald a large number of points, 3 games and two defeats later, it looks like Sutton has needlessly put pressure on himself even more and the reaction of the fans during and after the Stevenage game says that large sections of the support are no longer on his side. It does beg the question, at what point do the board sit down and notice the results, the dropping numbers at Sincil Bank and the generally poor performances and do something about it......I won't hold my breath.

50 games down, enough is enough, Sutton is not good enough

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 25/09/2010 19:20

theimps.ka
25/09/2010 19:20

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Red Imp
26/09/2010 11:03

In all fairness to Jarrett, his corner kicks usually beat the first man. No-one seems to attack them.

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Rob Peel
26/09/2010 11:40

We have been on a downward spiral for 3 years and counting it is simple HE GOES or we get relegated.....
.
Interesting stats i did not know they were that BAD.....12 wins agsint league opposition not good enough

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Kate Jackson
26/09/2010 11:44

Completely agree Rob, especially when two of those victories only came about because of a 1-0 win from the penalty spot.

Good Luck, Mr Gorsky

http://twitter.com/#!/katejackson84
http://www.katejackson84.blogspot.com

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kevin6
26/09/2010 12:49

The most disappointing thing for me yesterday was the inability to create chances against a very average side. Three in the whole game. Where is the playmaker? Jarrett can cross a ball but I see no decisive passes from the midfield, nor do I see any runs off the ball. Keltie is a reasonable holding player but O'Keefe is not creative in the least, as far as I can see. I would rather have Clapham in the midfield, and put Hughton to right back.

Jarrett put some absolutely stunning crosses in but we never had the number of players in the box to attack them. I feel very sorry for Hutchinson who is, in my view, a reasonable footballer. But one attacker against five defenders?
I could see that O'Keefe was briefed to get into the box but he made no difference. We need midfielders to get from box to box - a la Richard Butcher. No, I don't think he should come back.

I saw a lot of frustration yesterday, particularly from Anderson, Hutchinson, Keltie and Hughton. Five bookings.
Hutchinson in particular blew a fit at Carayol for not crossing when he should have done.

At the minute, I cannot see where enough goals are going to come from to keep us up. Sutton seems mired in negative tactics and average players. Jarrett is by far the best player we have, but his shoulders are not broad enough to carry the rest of the team.

Roll on Burton and another potentailly depressing evening.

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