Town Fans Delight Must Not Turn To Despair

It was a good performance at Portman Road on Saturday but once again, we relied largely on Tom Lawrence to get us the goals.

At the moment, he just can’t stop scoring and let us hope he stays fit and continues in this extraordinary free-flowing shoot on sight state of mind, when we go to Lincoln City tomorrow night, in the FA 3rd round replay.

Since he has been with Town he has been a revelation. When he first arrived on the scene, I could see a lot of attacking intent in his general play but I never envisaged him scoring so many sensational goals.

He is now arguably, the best ever loan signing we have ever had the privilege of watching.

We may criticise our manager for being far too defence minded but before Tom Lawrence we had of course Ryan Fraser and he is now a regular in the Premier League with Bournemouth causing havoc so our manager and his coaching staff certainly know a thing or two about what excites the fans as well.

Defenders hate pace and both Fraser and Lawrence have this in large supply but pace alone is not enough. You need technical ability too and some of the more recent strikes from Tom Lawrence are good enough to grace the world stage – let alone the Championship!

Tomorrow night a new drama unfolds in front of the live BBC camera’s and Blues fans around the globe will be hoping to get a glimpse of just way our Leicester loanee is such a big draw?

Town must go into the game as if it was against a Championship team because if they don’t, there is a real risk of an upset here.

The Imps rested six of their first team players at the weekend so they will come into this one fresher than Town and fighting fit.

A home game awaits the winners in the next round and if we are to get through a very testing replay, then I feel it is vital we start well.

An early goal would go a long way to settling nerves, although from the off we can expect Lincoln to be on the front foot, with a partisan crowd baying for blood.

Mick Mills said on Radio Suffolk’s Final Whistle that he was confident that Town would progress and certainly this time around, manager Mick McCarthy will know the potential pitfalls of starting slowly and then trying to play catch up away.

With our leaky defence that would be the worst case scenario so it is vital we treat the opposition with the utmost respect.

Frank Weston – Editor of Vital Ipswich