Joey Barton: Fleetwood Town's draw with Lincoln City was a fair outcome

The 0-0 scoreline didn’t reflect an entertaining clash between two sides who wanted to play flowing football.

Barton’s charges could have nicked victory at the end if Imps’ shot-stopper Alex Palmer had not denied substitute Barrie McKay.

“I thought we were definitely better last Friday,” reflected Barton, referring to his side’s 4-1 win over Hull City.

“It’s nice to have got our first clean sheet of the season. It wasn’t a boring 0-0 stalemate though, both teams tried to win the game.

“I thought they had a really good spell at the start of the second half, but they’re a good side.

“They’re in the right position in the table, they have some good players and Appy (Michael Appleton, Lincoln boss) has got them organised really well.

“I did feel we finished the game a little bit stronger and had a really good chance late in the game to win it. I think a point is a fair result.

“We knew Lincoln were a good side coming in, so I’m not frustrated we’ve not managed to build on our win over Hull.

“When you have a really positive result like we did last week, then everybody expects you to steamroll everybody here but we knew just what a tough test that would be.

“We’re still putting together our team and we’re still waiting to bed everybody down.

“I’m really pleased with the group we’ve got and you can see by the substitutes that we can carry enormous depth to the squad we’ve got.”

Paddy Madden headed against the crossbar and Ched Evans had a couple of decent chances for the hosts.

However, Cod Army keeper Jayson Leutwiler had a busy afternoon.

He produced a string of excellent blocks to thwart the visitors and make sure Barton’s men went three games unbeaten in all competitions.

“It was a positive result,” added Barton. “I would have liked the three points, but it was definitely something to build on.

“We’d lost three before Hull and Lincoln, so if you’d have offered me four goals and four points I probably would have taken it.

“I’m a little bit disappointed we’ve not taken six points but Lincoln are a good side and they’ll be there or thereabouts this season.

“They had a couple of decent chances as well as others, so I’m not going to stand here and say we absolutely battered them and we deserved to win, because that would be false for me to do so.

“I thought if anyone was going to win, it was us at the end. I thought we came on a lot stronger at the end.

“If we’d have won it, I think they would have felt aggrieved, but if they’d have won it we’d certainly have felt aggrieved.

“It’s very, very rare we get a 0-0 here, but it was a very good League One encounter.”