Lincoln City (A)

[Farnywhite]

If we loose and they win there game in hand there probably looking at another 5 wins to get them over the line . We need to beat them .
A draws not enough as to be win with the run in 

Edited February 8 by Farnywhite

[Matt Lofthouse]

52 minutes ago, tomski said:

See I don’t think it’s as cut throat as that. Obviously want the win. Big statement but nothing decided next week.

We will though 2-1

9 points, plus 11 gd and a game in hand might just be a bridge too far I reckon mate with our run in. 

[Tonge moor green jacket]

Some straw clutching. 

They have yet to play Doncaster. Bit of a derby game, so who knows what could happen.

They have to play Cardiff, Stockport and Huddersfield. 

Mansfield away won't be easy neither- they had some great results over the festive period. 

Bizarrely, if they keep winning, and Cardiff have a couple of poor results, then it may be the Welsh boys we have in our sights.

 

[Gravel rash]

Couple of messages below from the Lincoln fans board 🤔 Fair to say both camps realise the importance of this one. We have the potential to thump any team in this league if we turn up. Next week we must turn up, no excuses. COYWM!👊

clanford said:

Ethan not so much as he still has many years ahead. Hopefully next Saturday will put him in his place 

Hopefully lots of refrains of, 'You should have stayed at Lincoln'.

Wonder whether we will try to rile him to get him sent off? Relatively easy to do, from memory.

 

Scotimp said:

If we beat Bolton next week, we will be 9 points clear of them (effectively ten points due to goal difference) and with a game in hand. The win would also put us 11 clear of Stockport, as they do not play due to the FA Cup; that is a significant gap to close even with a game in hand. Huge game.

I think a draw is enough. Bolton have been maintaining points scoring with us, but they haven't been outscoring against us. A draw will keep them at bay and I think they will start to look at us a little beyond them. A phycological advantage that may prove very valuable in the run in.

[Lt. Aldo Raine]

Let's not forget that, on paper, we have a very difficult run-in ourselves

I agree that if we fail to win it doesn't mean it's over, but it'd really fucking help if we did

[Farnywhite]

1 hour ago, Gravel rash said:

Couple of messages below from the Lincoln fans board 🤔 Fair to say both camps realise the importance of this one. We have the potential to thump any team in this league if we turn up. Next week we must turn up, no excuses. COYWM!👊

clanford said:

Ethan not so much as he still has many years ahead. Hopefully next Saturday will put him in his place 

Hopefully lots of refrains of, 'You should have stayed at Lincoln'.

Wonder whether we will try to rile him to get him sent off? Relatively easy to do, from memory.

 

Scotimp said:

If we beat Bolton next week, we will be 9 points clear of them (effectively ten points due to goal difference) and with a game in hand. The win would also put us 11 clear of Stockport, as they do not play due to the FA Cup; that is a significant gap to close even with a game in hand. Huge game.

I think a draw is enough. Bolton have been maintaining points scoring with us, but they haven't been outscoring against us. A draw will keep them at bay and I think they will start to look at us a little beyond them. A phycological advantage that may prove very valuable in the run in.

Bet they would take a draw before hand A draws keeps us at arms length .
If it’s all square going into the last few minutes hope we go shit or bust and throw everything at them . We will get the play offs so this will be the last shot at autos unless they were to blow up big time in the run in 

Edited February 8 by Farnywhite

[desperado]

2 minutes ago, Farnywhite said:

think they will start to look at us a little beyond them

This brings out the irrational in me 😂

In the cold light of day and in context, I know that this is talking about the points difference that could be between us and would reinforce what a good season Lincoln are having as our main competitors for promotion …

… but fuck me, talk of Lincoln being beyond us should not even exist in a sentence! 

[Johnnyrotten]

14 minutes ago, Farnywhite said:

Bet they would take a draw before hand A draws keeps us at arms length .
If it’s all square going into the last few minutes hope we go shit or bust and throw everything at them . We will get the play offs so this will be the last shot at autos unless they were to blow up big time in the run in 

I'd agree, its like the 1st leg of a play off semi at home.  Where you know the importance of getting a lead to take to the away game.  A draw isn't a disaster but the writing's on the wall like when we drew the 1st leg v Barnsley, in our heart of hearts we'd blown our chance.  Same here, we have this chance to win the "1st leg" and if we don't we know the script, expecting them to drop 10 more points than us is unrealistic.  As you say if its a draw with 10 minutes left, treat it as being a goal behind and go for it, if it means we lose on the break so be it, I think we have to gamble to stand a chance of getting 2nd.  

[Farnywhite]

1 hour ago, desperado said:

but fuck me, talk of Lincoln being beyond us should not even exist in a sentence! 

You could have said that about Bournemouth but it is what it is .
at the minute Lincoln are were they are on merit if we go there and beat them they might buckle but to go there and not win then expect teams like Mansfield to do it for us well that’s going to be grasping at straws.

Let’s go there all guns blazing shit or bust 

[Awful lineup]

It’s about being realistic and not optimistic . It’s not about glass being half full either. 
fact is they have won every game bar 1 which they drew since the beginning of December. They are also winning games comfortably , none of this scraping result like  us .  They are effectively 10 points clear and a loss to them will just be too larger gap to catch up with only 15 games less . Everyone knows that you can’t catch up a point a game which is what we would have to do if we lose . 
it’s win or bust guys . Game over if we lose , 

… and don’t give me the ‘ we’re still on the playoffs ‘ stuff . That just means league 1 again . 

[desperado]

12 minutes ago, Awful lineup said:

It’s about being realistic and not optimistic . It’s not about glass being half full either. 
fact is they have won every game bar 1 which they drew since the beginning of December. They are also winning games comfortably , none of this scraping result like  us .  They are effectively 10 points clear and a loss to them will just be too larger gap to catch up with only 15 games less . Everyone knows that you can’t catch up a point a game which is what we would have to do if we lose . 
it’s win or bust guys . Game over if we lose , 

… and don’t give me the ‘ we’re still on the playoffs ‘ stuff . That just means league 1 again . 

That’s a happy post to end the weekend! 🤣

Cant tell whether you’re a Lincoln fan or a pissed up lurker who fancies having a dig.

Either way a strange 2nd post in 8 years! 

[Johnnyrotten]

2 hours ago, Farnywhite said:

You could have said that about Bournemouth but it is what it is .
at the minute Lincoln are were they are on merit if we go there and beat them they might buckle but to go there and not win then expect teams like Mansfield to do it for us well that’s going to be grasping at straws.

Let’s go there all guns blazing shit or bust 

Yes, we've got used to small clubs being better than us, and Bournemouth/Brentford the most obvious examples.

At least we've moved up a notch if Lincoln are now our rivals.

The year we finished 3rd in L2, we could only dream of catching Cheltenham and Cambridge, our big rivals for automatic promotion were Morecambe.  If it had only been top 2 automatic we'd have played Forest Green in the play offs.

[BeeversLeftPeg]

1 thing you can't level at Schumacher and this squad is wilting in big games.

More than capable of going here and winning, and the fact we seem to have that knack of being able to dig in and see games out gives me cause for us to be optimistic. 

[freds dad]

11 hours ago, desperado said:

That’s a happy post to end the weekend! 🤣

Cant tell whether you’re a Lincoln fan or a pissed up lurker who fancies having a dig.

Either way a strange 2nd post in 8 years! 

Perhaps he’s been to Germany 

[barrycowdrill]

Our toughest game of the season to date. No question. Away against a team 2nd in the league, unbeaten in 13, lost once at home and 6 points clear of us. 

however, if we are able to knit a performance together like the first half on Saturday for the 90 mins there isn’t any reason we can’t win the game. 
 

I wasn’t particularly impressed with them earlier in the season at our place. Scored (very) early and hung on for a point. Yep there’s the argument that we should’ve been better at breaking them down and it was a decent away performance but nothing from them made me fearful. They have no doubt improved since then and demonstrated more consistency but it is nowhere near an impossible job to win there 

The players know what’s riding on the game and to be fair to them, under SS when it has mattered in the “big games” they have come out with the result needed so no need to doubt them. It’s been the other games where they have taken their eye off the ball so to speak. 
 

Business end of the season and the pressure is always felt greater by the hunted. We win and they will start to feel it. There will be a run of games where they have a few poor results. It’s absolutely inevitable. So we a) need to force that and b) take advantage when it occurs 

[JimmyRiddle]

Just checked and from the 18 in the squad when we lost at Lincoln in April last year, only 4 remain at the club or in 1st team squad, Forino and GJ started and McAtee & Dempsey on bench.

That is some turnaround in only 2 windows. Let's just hope we have a better performance than that one! 

[Whitesince63]

20 minutes ago, barrycowdrill said:

Our toughest game of the season to date. No question. Away against a team 2nd in the league, unbeaten in 13, lost once at home and 6 points clear of us. 

however, if we are able to knit a performance together like the first half on Saturday for the 90 mins there isn’t any reason we can’t win the game. 
 

I wasn’t particularly impressed with them earlier in the season at our place. Scored (very) early and hung on for a point. Yep there’s the argument that we should’ve been better at breaking them down and it was a decent away performance but nothing from them made me fearful. They have no doubt improved since then and demonstrated more consistency but it is nowhere near an impossible job to win there 

The players know what’s riding on the game and to be fair to them, under SS when it has mattered in the “big games” they have come out with the result needed so no need to doubt them. It’s been the other games where they have taken their eye off the ball so to speak. 
 

Business end of the season and the pressure is always felt greater by the hunted. We win and they will start to feel it. There will be a run of games where they have a few poor results. It’s absolutely inevitable. So we a) need to force that and b) take advantage when it occurs 

Exactly, we shouldn’t be worried about anybody, home or away, especially now we’re firing on more cylinders. Lincoln are clearly a good side and I do rate their manager but I think there will be more pressure on them than us so we can go there knowing only a win is good enough and hope that they play for a draw which I’m sure they’ll be happy with. Definitely a game which will define our season.

[Zico]

Anything can happen, they're due a dip, but that suggests we're not etc

If we win it could be more than just 3 points and a massive psychological boost for us and could affect them

If we don't win we're going to have to go on an all mighty run to stand a chance which would probably mean not dropping any points in our very tough run in

Anyway 

Just win 

[bwfc2003]

Looks like Lincoln have only 22 seats left for this - - Big Game !!!

[gonzo]

57 minutes ago, freds dad said:

Perhaps he’s been to Germany 

Miserable fucker needs to go back there.

[burnden]

[Johnnyrotten]

6 hours ago, BeeversLeftPeg said:

1 thing you can't level at Schumacher and this squad is wilting in big games.

More than capable of going here and winning, and the fact we seem to have that knack of being able to dig in and see games out gives me cause for us to be optimistic. 

A definite improvement in 1. local derbies (Wigan home and away and not losing at Blackpool).  2.  Not getting routinely turned over in big home games eg v Bradford, Birmingham, Cardiff.

What we've not done, and its not a criticism just an observation, is win away at either an in form team or a top team - Huddersfield was fantastic, but they were in the middle of 1 win in 8.  Hard to remember the last time we went away to a team in anything like the form Lincoln are in other than Brum under IE.  

The last 2 aways at top half teams (Peterboro/Wycombe) were poor defeats, our last point at a decent side in reasonable form was Luton and the only other one was Barnsley.

SS has still to get a stand out away result, the only thing that's stood out about our away form is how many poor results we've had since he started last season. 

I don't think we'll "bottle it" for a minute, it just boils down to are we good enough to go to a very good L1 team and give it a really good go.  

[Stig]

6 hours ago, barrycowdrill said:

Our toughest game of the season to date. No question. Away against a team 2nd in the league, unbeaten in 13, lost once at home and 6 points clear of us. 

however, if we are able to knit a performance together like the first half on Saturday for the 90 mins there isn’t any reason we can’t win the game. 
 

I wasn’t particularly impressed with them earlier in the season at our place. Scored (very) early and hung on for a point. Yep there’s the argument that we should’ve been better at breaking them down and it was a decent away performance but nothing from them made me fearful. They have no doubt improved since then and demonstrated more consistency but it is nowhere near an impossible job to win there 

The players know what’s riding on the game and to be fair to them, under SS when it has mattered in the “big games” they have come out with the result needed so no need to doubt them. It’s been the other games where they have taken their eye off the ball so to speak. 
 

Business end of the season and the pressure is always felt greater by the hunted. We win and they will start to feel it. There will be a run of games where they have a few poor results. It’s absolutely inevitable. So we a) need to force that and b) take advantage when it occurs 

I thought they were very strong at ours in the first half and then stopped playing for some reason. 

One thing is for sure, it'll be a big game for Forino with how many times they launch it into the box. Proper tough match coming up - exciting already.

[boltonboris]

Have to be careful conceding corners. They put them right under the crossbar on top of the keeper and get all sorts of misdirection, motion and blocks going on. They cause chaos

If we keep the ball well we’ve every chance. But we need to be ruthless and take our chances when they come, because Lincoln certainly will

[Tonge moor green jacket]

43 minutes ago, boltonboris said:

Have to be careful conceding corners. They put them right under the crossbar on top of the keeper and get all sorts of misdirection, motion and blocks going on. They cause chaos

If we keep the ball well we’ve every chance. But we need to be ruthless and take our chances when they come, because Lincoln certainly will

That's what we seem to have started doing at set pieces.

Helps when the delivery is quick and accurate- like Dempsey's.