Imps aim for rare victory on Saturday
By Nathan Jackson
April 12 2007
Lincoln City head into the weekend's game against Wrexham hoping to secure only a 5th win of the calender year. Lincoln City's recent form has been poor but Wrexham's has been even worse and are on the verge of relegation to the Conference, surely this is a game that Lincoln City can win.
Before the Easter weekend I spoke about the distinct possibility of us recovering the gap to the automatic promotion places, since then the gap has increased to 9 points with just 12 games left and it appears to be game over for the Imps on that front. Despite the setback, we are still on course to finish in the playoff positions (again). I’m not considering the next 4 weeks as another sort of “pre-season” program and City have an interesting opening game to those 4 weeks.
Wrexham beat City earlier in the season thanks to two heavily deflected shots in the first half, since that day that Imps have gone on to still relatively have a good chance of promotion despite some indifferent form. Wrexham on the other hand have slid to the brink of relegation, and a defeat on Saturday could just see them left needing a Lazarus-like miracle to stave off being the Welsh side to be relegated to the Conference since automatic relegation came into play.
As for team news there is no major new news with Nat Brown still out suspended. Hopefully Dany N’Guessan will be dropped for Jamie Forrester because N’Guessan’s performances since he joined can kindly be described as lacklusture, believe me when I say I want to use stronger words. The likely starting line up will see Marriott in goal, Green and Eaden on either side of the defence with Beevers and Mayo in between them,
Frecklington is still a slight doubt for the Imps with his back injury, but if he does return then he could be the latest victim of the “Who’s Dropped so that Peter Holmes can play”. Based on that, the midfield could possibly be Hughes on the left, Kerr and Holmes in the middle with Amoo on the right. Jamie Forrester and Mark Stallard should be the starting strike partnership.
Wrexham have slowly collapsed down the table as the season has gone on, it started with a great undefeated run, infact they lost it with a 5-0 defeat at Accrington on September 13th, that left City as the only undefeated side in the Football League at that point (although that only lasted until the 16th) and since then they’ve slowly started creeping down the table. Infact, they’ve won just 3 times since beating the Imps in November. They are currently on a run of just 1 win in 6 games.