Rochdale hosted Keith Alexander's promotion chasing Lincoln City at Spotland but came away the losers as Dale were easily beaten 3-0. A full match report and player ratings are now online.

The recent good form of Rochdale ended today as they were battered by 3 goals to 0 at Spotland with Dale putting in a very poor display and simply couldn't handle Lincoln's way of playing.

A very disappointing game was view in the Studds Bar before the game on the big screen with a horrible result and the day simply got a lot worse as it wore on.  When I got in the Sandy Lane end, I went up to speak to Neil Edwards to get the team news and he told me it was the same as Tuesday night but with Lee McEvilly up front with Grant Holt instead of Kevin Townson.  The team was, Edwards in net, a back 4 of Evans, Heald, Livesey and Shaun Smith, a midfield 4 of Bertos, Redfearn, Jones and Flood with McEvilly and Holt up front as stated.  The bench consisted of Gilks, Burgess, Doughty, Warner and Townson.

Rochdale started the game well enough with us having a good chance after a couple of minutes when Livesey heading over from a corner crossed in by Neil Redfearn.

Willo Flood had a decent chance shortly after as well when he was put through by a good pass from McEvilly but Flood's effort was a poor one and lacked no power and Marriott had no problem with it and not long after that Neil Redfearn had a long range effort that went sailing over the cross bar.

With just over 15 minutes gone, Lincoln scored via their huge centre back Futcher but it was disallowed because he clearly fouled the goalkeeper.  To say that they looked dangerous at set pieces was a huge understatement and Dale didn't like it.

With nearly 20 minutes of the game gone, Dale's chances were severely reduced when Dale's Grant Holt was taken off with injury and was replaced by Kevin Townson who I wasn't bothered about at all but the lack of Holt would be a huge problem against defenders that should have been playing basketball rather than football!

Dale's next good effort was from Townson though I didn't think it should have been him getting the effort away with a Dale midfielder being better placed behind him.  Leo Bertos did well down the right and got a good cross in and Townson took it away from the on-coming midfielder and tried to overhead kick-it but got it wrong and the ball went out for a goal kick.

Dale went into the half time break at 0-0 and at that point I said I would have taken a point.

The 2nd half was a total disaster for Dale who were very much outplayed from start to finish.

Neil Edwards was called into action a couple of times before Lincoln did actually take the lead and their goal came courtesy of some good football from the visitors in which a fantastic cross from Dale reject Mark Bailey was headed back across goal to Gary Fletcher who headed home from close range to make it 1-0 to Lincoln after 57 minutes.

Just a few minutes later, Lincoln substitute Simon Yeo finished off a fantastic move with a very good effort that went in off the bar to make it 2-0 to Lincoln after 66 minutes.  By this time some of the Dale fans took it upon themselves to leave the ground.  T

Just 2 minutes later, Lincoln made it 3-0 and a lot of people left the ground dejected and very annoyed.  A Greg Heald mistake was capitalised on and despite Edwards' best efforts, Fletcher got his 2nd goal of the game finishing with ease.

The last thing I remember Dale doing was Lee McEvilly's chance.  Neil Redfearn played a decent ball in for Evil who arrived at the back post and his header was stopped on the line by Marriott.

Not the best advert for Rochdale AFC when there were quite a number of non-regulars taking advantage of the free ticket deal though despite there being about 5000 given out for the game, the overall attendance was 4224.

Rochdale now find themselves the same number points in front of Macclesfield and York but a game behind Macc and 2 games behind York with the 2 teams meeting tomorrow afternoon.  It's getting very tight down there but I still remain confident that Dale can beat the drop despite today's bad day.

Player Ratings:

NEIL EDWARDS 7 Best of the bunch, made some very good saves despite letting in 3

Wayne Evans 6 Not too bad for Evans, quite solid and worked hard.  Took a few knocks as well

Shaun Smith 6 Some very good long passes and a decent enough game for Smith

Greg Heald 5 His worst game for the club.  Not to good in the air and made a mistake for the 3rd goal

Danny Livesey 6 Made an awesome block in the first half but then became very average from then on.

Leo Bertos 6 Inactive most of the first half but did better 2nd half though but nothing came of it

Willo Flood 5 Struggled to get into the game I thought today and was rightly substituted early in the 2nd half

Neil Redfearn 6 Not too bad, some very good service but also some very poor passes at times

Gary Jones 6 Didn't go his way today though he put all his effort in as usual

Grant Holt 6 Went off after nearly 20 minutes

Lee McEvilly 6 Not too bad, held the ball up well but only once looked like scoring

Subs:  

Kevin Townson 5 Out of sorts again.  Unlucky with a volley that was hard to get under control and an overhead kick.

Matt Doughty 6 Not too bad when he came on and looked to attack but we didn't manage to do so.

Photo: Action Images

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