City head coach Michael Skubala hailed his side’s performance after they began their 2025/26 campaign with a comfortable 2-0 victory over Reading at the LNER Stadium.
Goals in either half from Rob Street and Reeco Hackett helped the Imps to a deserved win on home soil and the head coach believes he 'couldn’t have asked anymore' from his side.
Skubala said: “Everyone emptied the tank. We were solid, strong and competitive, which is everything you want on the first day of the season.
“It’s never going to be perfect on the opening day. You want to get the three points of course and in terms of effort and desire, the group were 'top'.
“We’d worked on some things in training in terms of their high line and how we could press and we had some joy from that.
“Both goals came from bits we’d worked on, so that is really pleasing, but of course credit goes to the lads for going out there and competing well.”
Skubala added that he felt the Imps laid down a real marker for how City want to play at home, with the head coach reserving special praise for the supporters in the role they played in the win.
“The fans were absolutely excellent and we all felt really together as a team. This result has set a marker for how we want to be here.
“You need your keeper to make big saves and I think George [Wickens] did that for us today. At 1-0, they were throwing everything at us.
“As soon as the second goal went in, I thought we were going to get more. I think it knocked the wind out of Reading’s sails so to speak.
“I think that was because of how solid we were as a collective all over the pitch. We spoke about how we want our home to be a tough place to come.”
