Soccer
Tom Shaw hails ‘nuisance’ Mikkel Ladefoged after equaliser against Southampton
Lincoln head coach Tom Shaw hailed Danish hero Mikkel Ladefoged after he rescued a late point for the Imps in their 1-1 draw with Southampton.
The club’s record signing headed in fellow sub Reeco Hackett’s cross in the 87th minute to snatch a point against the Saints and stretch their unbeaten Championship run to three matches.
The equaliser came after Welington had also notched his first goal for the Saints on the stroke of half-time, when his 44th-minute thunderbolt looked likely to be good enough, before Ladefoged struck.
“We’ve got a player who’s a real problem in the penalty area and we’ve got to help him and he’s got to help himself in getting up to speed and understanding what we want, but he’s got the physicality and mentality to do that,” said Shaw. “He’s a real nuisance.
“We felt the goal was coming – we sort of reverted to plan B. We created loads of volume, loads of chaos and we’re good in the chaos.”
On the game itself, where City produced 19 shots on Saints’ goal, Shaw went on: “I’m delighted with the way the boys acquitted themselves – the outside world wasn’t expecting us to compete with Southampton.
“Physically, technically and tactically we were excellent and made life uncomfortable for them and that’s been the plan for the last few days. We’re very pleased.
“We know it’s going to be a period of growth at the start of the season – we were dubbed as the 24th horse in the race – but look where we are already. We’re competing well with some monster football clubs.”
Southampton struck first on the cusp of the break. There looked to be no danger when Welington received the ball from James Ward-Prowse 25 yards out, but he unleashed a rocket that arrowed into the top corner.
City laid siege to the Saints goal in the last quarter of an hour and finally broke through when Hackett’s inch-perfect cross found Ladefoged about a yard out and he had the simple task of heading the ball home.
Saints boss Tonda Eckert cut a frustrated figure after seeing his side throw away two late points.
He said: “Credit to Lincoln for a performance of courage, manliness and energy. The job was to make sure we brought the ball down quickly and stayed on the floor.
“There were a couple of spells where we did that and not so well, but then we went 1-0 up. I think there’s two ways to bring the game home; the first is to score the second goal and if you don’t manage that we need to find ways of grinding games out and that was the disappointing thing about today.
“The second half gave us enough moments to score a second goal but we need to do better with balls that come into the box. They showed a lot of physicality but it is up to us to deal with that.”
