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"It's obviously a very disappointing result for us in the end. The players played a really good game for us, dominated the first half completely but didn't create a lot of chances. Credit to Lincoln for how little they restricted us to.
"There was a spell in the second half where it was as good as we've played for a long time, and the goal was a real sign of that. Then we were looking to kick on.
"The second goal knocks us a little bit, and credit to Lincoln, I thought they stepped on the gas late on and restricted the amount of times we could get back in the game. No criticisms otherwise.
"This is a tough place to come. Full credit to Lincoln for what they achieved today, we respect them enormously. But I thought there were spells in that game where we were really at our best, and once we scored that goal, I thought we'd go on and create more chances to try and win the game. It just didn't work out that way today.
"We've spoken about how pleased we are with where the players are and what they've done, but obviously we're looking to improve moving forward - that doesn't change. We've a highly ambitious group of players in there, who we believe can progress significantly, and our focus is on doing that in the immediate future. Probably the most significant part of our game that we will improve on is how we chase the game.
"Nathan Trott damaged his hand in the challenge against Chelsea in the second half. He didn't complete training yesterday, and as such he wasn't available for today. There was no injury with Joel Bagan."
Lincoln boss Michael Skubala
“Three points is the perfect Christmas present - I thought the performance was sensational and we did everything we wanted to against a really top team.
“It felt like a big game for us with the big crowd and away fans - our supporters were sensational and they played their part. We need everyone to be together and connected just like that to go on and achieve what we want to this season.”
Skubala added: “We changed shape after they scored to be more aggressive and I thought we could have gone on to score more as we finished strongly.
“It’s a tough league - if you’re not on it you can get beat and resilience is really important. Cardiff would have got on top of many teams after they equalised, but we flipped it. In that moment the lads were so brave and aggressive.
“This place is a bit of a fortress and any team coming here knows they are in for a tough game.”
"There was a spell in the second half where it was as good as we've played for a long time, and the goal was a real sign of that. Then we were looking to kick on.
"The second goal knocks us a little bit, and credit to Lincoln, I thought they stepped on the gas late on and restricted the amount of times we could get back in the game. No criticisms otherwise.
"This is a tough place to come. Full credit to Lincoln for what they achieved today, we respect them enormously. But I thought there were spells in that game where we were really at our best, and once we scored that goal, I thought we'd go on and create more chances to try and win the game. It just didn't work out that way today.
"We've spoken about how pleased we are with where the players are and what they've done, but obviously we're looking to improve moving forward - that doesn't change. We've a highly ambitious group of players in there, who we believe can progress significantly, and our focus is on doing that in the immediate future. Probably the most significant part of our game that we will improve on is how we chase the game.
"Nathan Trott damaged his hand in the challenge against Chelsea in the second half. He didn't complete training yesterday, and as such he wasn't available for today. There was no injury with Joel Bagan."
Lincoln boss Michael Skubala
“Three points is the perfect Christmas present - I thought the performance was sensational and we did everything we wanted to against a really top team.
“It felt like a big game for us with the big crowd and away fans - our supporters were sensational and they played their part. We need everyone to be together and connected just like that to go on and achieve what we want to this season.”
Skubala added: “We changed shape after they scored to be more aggressive and I thought we could have gone on to score more as we finished strongly.
“It’s a tough league - if you’re not on it you can get beat and resilience is really important. Cardiff would have got on top of many teams after they equalised, but we flipped it. In that moment the lads were so brave and aggressive.
“This place is a bit of a fortress and any team coming here knows they are in for a tough game.”
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