Michael Appleton hails ‘outstanding’ Lincoln display in Cheltenham victory

Michael Appleton hailed an “outstanding” performance from Lincoln in their 3-0 victory over Cheltenham.

Morgan Whittaker’s brace, either side of Anthony Scully’s 15th goal of the season, saw the Imps seal their Sky Bet League One status in style.

All three goals came inside the opening 20 minutes. Whittaker opened the scoring after four minutes, Scully forced home the second in the 17th minute and Whittaker cracked home his second shortly afterwards.

Such was their dominance, Lincoln could have been further ahead at half-time against a Cheltenham side who delivered an unusually underwhelming display.

“We were outstanding in that period. It was 3-0 but it could have been six or seven,” said Appleton.

“We moved the ball really well, we switched the play well. We knew they would be narrow and that if we switched it really quickly, we would get a bit of joy.

“It helps having the surface like we’ve got it at this moment in time. You could tell that the players were enjoying themselves.”

There were numerous candidates for the man-of-the-match award, which went to Whittaker. Among them was midfielder Lewis Fiorini, who had a hand in two of the goals to continue his excellent form of recent weeks.

“He’s been outstanding for the last couple of months,” Appleton added. “He was great when he first came in. He had a little bit of a lull around Christmas but then so did we as a team.”

In contrast, Cheltenham boss Michael Duff said the 200 travelling supporters deserved an apology for their side’s display.

“Nowhere near good enough,” Duff said. “I’ve had to apologise to the supporters, who have come a long way on a bank holiday weekend.

“Not good enough. It’s not been us very often, so you have to be careful because they have been lauded last week for breaking records and things like that.

“It just reinforces the point that we are not a team that can just turn up, enjoy the sun and pass it around.

“We have to be at full intensity in everything we do. We didn’t win any first contacts and they had players running past our players, so a really disappointing afternoon.”

There were no goals in the second half, but Cheltenham should have pulled one back when Kion Etete rounded Lincoln goalkeeper Jordan Wright, only to hit a post from a tight angle.

“We got better in the last 20 minutes, but they are 3-0 up at that point,” Duff added.

“It would have been interesting if Kion had scored when he went round the keeper, but it summed up the day. An open goal and he hits the post, because the last 20 minutes might have been slightly different at that point.”