Imps hope both weather and fortunes change

By Nathan Jackson
January 19 2007

Lincoln City hope to be facing Bury at Gigg Lane on Saturday, and avoid suffering a 6th defeat in the space of 8 away games. City's recent away form has been miserable, and we seem to be running into inconsistent Bury at just the wrong time...that's if the game is played at all.

 

It’s safe to say that we weren’t at our best against Bury earlier in the season, arguably the worst performance by City so far this season. It was a game where everything went right for visitors as they scored with all but one of their shots on target. It was another in a long line of crap City performances against Bury. Infact, since entering this division back in 2002/3, Bury have only failed to get at least a point off of City on 3 occasions, all coming within a year of each other.

Infact, when Lincoln do face Bury, it is very rarely an interesting affair and several times in recent years, the only shots on target from either side have gone into the net and the game effectively ended then…..Craig Westcarr anybody?? Infact, I can’t recall actually watching a game between the two sides which wouldn’t send a neutral fan to sleep.

City’s recent form on the road has been stuff that would make you a bit worried if our home form wasn’t relatively good. City have lost 5 of the last 7 on the road, a total contrast to earlier in the season. To be fair though, out of those 5 defeats, only Stockport deserved to beat us, don’t even get me started on the Macclesfield game.

If the game is still on then it could be the last first team start that some players make for the Imps.

As mentioned above, with several new players hopefully joining within the next week, it could entice performances to raise above the sub-standard efforts of the second half against Shrewsbury Town. With Mark Stallard set to face a one-match suspension, the formation will be the main talking point with 4-4-2 looking likely.

I read earlier in the week that the John’s were thinking of putting Nat Brown up front with Forrester. Surely Keith Alexander proved over the previous 4 years that you can’t just lump a defender up front and hope for miracles. It worked with Jon Parkin at Macclesfield, it won’t work here. The only choice to partner Forrester unless someone else is brought in has to be Weir-Daley.

Marriott

Beevers   Brown  Moses    Mayo

Amoo    Kerr  Frecklington  Hughes

Forrester   Weir-Daley

 

Over the last few years there have been a few sides that the term “consistently inconsistent” applies to, but none come close to Bury. Well that’s a bit of a lie really because their season is taking an odd pattern. After they’ve lost a few in a row, they lose a few before winning a few, losing a few, and so on. If the trend is anything to go by then City could be in trouble, as Bury haven’t won in 5.

Bury do actually have an above average squad, and one that on paper could mount an outside chance at the playoffs. In recent days, they’ve added to their ranks by recruiting Andy Warrington from Doncaster, definitely not a bad replacement for Fettis or Grundy.

The key to getting something from Bury is scoring first. Only twice this season have Bury conceded the first goal and gone onto collect a maximum, however they’ve also scored first and lost on a total of 4 times. I’m going to touch wood now, but City have yet to take the lead in a league game and go on to lose….famous last words?