Simon Clark's second chance comes at Bournemouth

Simon Clark's second chance to impress the hierarchy at SIncil Bankwill his take City down to Bournemouth. After it emerged he was given an interview for the management position, Clark will fancy his chances of getting a result against the injury-filled, but very impressive Bournemouth side.

Saturday will see two dates that are important tomorrow. Saturday September 12^th 2009, the date we go to one of my favourite grounds in the division, as well as a day out, that's the good side, the negative being that it is also my 25^th birthday that day and City usually do quite badly around my birthday. Last season it was a 3-1 defeat at Bury and the year before was a 2-0 defeat Darlington, infact the last time we got a decent result around my birthday was the last time a game was actually played on my birthday, a 2-1 win over Macclesfield in 2006.

With Simon Clark securing himself an interview for the vacant manager's position, this is the perfect chance for him to enhance his chances following last week's 3-0 win over Darlington. The only issue many fans have with his application is that although a 3-0 win was very good, it came against one of the worst sides in the division, and City should have won by considerable more. He has been told to prepare for City's next two games, meaning a new manager won't be appointed for some time, therefore giving Clark a great chance.

However, he isn't the only one with a point to prove. Too many players got into a comfort zone last season, knowing that they would play regardless of how poor they had been playing. One such example being Lenell John-Lewis, the youngster gradually getting worse as time went on under Jackson, but excelling in last week's game against Darlington. Clark seems to be the sort of manager who will play players who deserve it, and not players who are simply not good enough.

Based on that assumption, predicting the team that will play is quite hard. Obviously you're going to get Burch in goal and the defence should be realistically the same of Hughton, Kovacs, Swaibu and Brown in the defence. The midfield mainly depends on injuries as to who will play, but you'd suspect it would be the same as last week with LJL, Kerr, Butcher and Jamie Clark in the middle. Up front and you're guaranteed to get a change with Paul Connor being injured, meaning Chris Fagan will almost certainly be up front with Rene Howe.

A win for City would see them potentially move into the Playoff places, a higher position than Peter Jackson ever managed, but it will be a very tricky game against a Bournemouth side that are not only joint top, but have won all three home games without conceding a goal. The only great bit of news for City is that with their current transfer embargo, Bournemouth can't bring anyone in to cover for the mini-injury crisis they have going on.

The Cherries have Steve Fletcher, Jason Pearce, Lee Bradbury and Sammy Igoe injured, all three are unlikely to play, but Bournemouth's most dangerous player remains injury free. Brett Pitman scored twice from the spot against the Imps last season in the thrilling 3-3 draw in January.

That game was a credit to the new attacking game that the Cherries play under  Eddie Howe and not only indicates why they have won 57.14% of their games under him, but why they've won 3-0 at Bury this season, as well as huge wins of 4-0 over Rochdale and Morecambe, 3-1 at promoted Exeter and 4-1 over Bradford towards the end of last season. They are certainly a difficult side to beat and will no doubt be challenging up the top come the end of the season.