Louis Dodds' Port Vale will do professional job at Barnet

Port Vale may not be concentrating on helping Lincoln, but former Imp Louis Dodds has said that they will be a professional job at Barnet, that despite their season effectively already being over. Barnet would need to beat Port Vale to stand any sort of chance of staying up.

Louis Dodds spent a season on loan at Lincoln from Leicester in 2007/8, he didn't set the world alight but did show glimpses of brilliance every now and then, including his brilliant last goal against Wycombe. He joined Port Vale a few months later and has been there ever since. Yesterday he scored a hatrick in a 7-2 win at Morecambe and despite not directly stating he would do it to help the Imps, he has said that Port Vale will be professional in their approach and go out to win their game at Barnet on Saturday.

"We have let ourselves and the supporters down and I think today it was important to show the fans that we were upset and disappointed not to get into the play-offs, as they were," Dodds told Port Vale's official website. "We have got to look forward to next week and continue to do a professional job against Barnet, then once we have done that, we can hopefully have a good summer, a good break and come back next season raring to go."

That will be welcome news for the Imps as Barnet have to beat Port Vale to stand any chance of surviving. Failure to win for Barnet would mean that the Imps stay up, a win for Barnet forces Lincoln to win due to our goal difference.

Both the Imps and Barnet have affiliations with the other's opponents. Port Vale have Louis Dodds in their squad and former Imp Geoff Horsfield as assistant manager. Lincoln's opponents Aldershot are managed by Dean Holdsworth, a former team-mate of Barnet's Director of Football, Lawrie Sanchez. Also, interestingly, Aldershot have a former Lincoln United player in the form of Alex Rodman.