Sam Tillen was happy with the second-half performance of his squad despite a 2-0 defeat against Sunderland.
On the return from their Scotland tour the young Imps made the trip to Sunderland where they played their high-level academy outfit. Tillen spoke on the importance of following a game plan against these quality sides.
He said: “Our task has to be to try and get the players into a position to take lead on the field and keep the team connected in order to try and solve issues during the game rather than be reliant on sideline direction.
“When they execute gameplans effectively the lads are a match for anyone, as we’ve shown in the quality opposition we played against on this trip.”
The Imps went into the break two goals down but showed character to put on a second-half performance which saw them as the better team.
Tillen said: “I felt in the first half we became too passive and ended up dropping too deep causing us to struggle to retain the ball as well as we’d like. This contributed to us heading into the break 2-0 down.”
“I felt we were far more proactive as opposed to reactive in the second half and we carried a significant threat offensively. We created some very good chances and I was very pleased with our second half performance against a youth team with the quality of Sunderland.”