Lincoln City 3-2 Port Vale report – dire Valiants end with nine men as awful run continues

Lincoln City 3-2 Port Vale report – the Valiants finished with nine men as their terrible run of form during the second-half of the season continued.

It meant that the Vale have had four players dismissed in the last three games while it was also a match ruined by another “eccentric” display from the referee. A match with few dirty challenges – saw a penalty, three red cards and ten yellows but of more concern to Darrell Clarke and co will be the woeful performances of some of the Vale squad. This game may make up Clarke’s mind about his summer retained list.

The game actually started as an even affair before Lincoln took charge early on. Mal Benning made a superb last-ditch challenge on eight minutes but then undid his good work by losing Lasse Sorensen and the midfielder had the simple task of beating Stone to put the home side ahead on eleven minutes.

However, the match exploded into life on the half-hour mark. Firstly, poor judgement by Lincoln keeper Rushworth saw him haul Matty Taylor down with a penalty and red card ineveviable. Taylor made no mistake from the spot to level things. The Valiants then took the lead when a defence splitting ball from Taylor set Butterworth free and he made no mistake with the finish. However, moments later the referee was alerted to an incident and Vale skipper Tom Conlon was dismissed for an off-the-ball incident.

It looked at times like the referee had lost control with yellows being given out at regular intervals. The home side rallied when Will Forrester missed a header and Ben House beat Stone to make it level at the break.

Darrell Clarke made multiple half-time changes with one of them, Sammy Robinson, taking just two minutes to get his name into the book.

The home side continued to press for the winner with a couple of penalty shouts turned down. However, arguably the defining moment of the match saw Robinson, who had been poor since entering play, picking up a second yellow to reduce Vale to nine men.

It looked a tough task for the nine men to hold and that proved to be the case as Adam Jackson headed home on 87 minutes to give Lincoln a win and to continue Vale’s desperate run of form.

The Valiants look completely lacking in discipline at the moment – this makes it four sendings-off in three games – and some of the performances were lacking the commitment that fans see as a bare minimum requirement for a Vale player. If Vale do manage to stay up – and they face a tough run-in – then some major changes are needed over the summer.

---

Vale performance notes

There were some really poor performances on display. To focus on the positives – Nathan Smith was a rock at the back while the hard working Tom Pett was also OK. However, there were many negatives with. Sammy Robinson’s red arguably costing Vale the game.

Vale performance stats

Vale: Stone – Forrester, Smith, Donnelly – Worrall (Holden), Pett, Conlon, Benning (Robinson) – Butterworth (Plant), Wilson (Harrison), Taylor (Massey)

Subs: Stevens, Proctor

Vale bookings: Benning, Pett, Butterworth, Taylor

Vale sendings-off: Conlon, Robinson

Vale goals: Taylor (30 pen), Butterworth (32)

Attendance: 8,290 (641 visitors)

---