Imps have their work cut out to prevent Macc wielding the knife.

After the unaccustomed home win in the first game of the season we’ve all been brought back to reality with back to back defeats, admittedly narrow ones and against sides who are expecting to be, to quote a very overused phrase at the moment, there or thereabouts. Most Imps would, one suspects, be quite pleased to see their side win at home on a regular basis and do their losing out of eyesight so to speak on some foreign field if that’s not to mangle an oft used saying too much.


Unfortunately, the way the opening fixtures are for City, after that initial very pleasant surprise, two losing games later the Imps find themselves, well not exactly looking down the barrel of a gun, it is only August after all, but certainly in need of another home win. This being Lincoln City the fates appear to be conspiring against us if the stories we are drip fed through the Lincolnshire Echo and, we must believe, emanating from the club or the manager at least, stories of virtually half the team being potentially unavailable. There or thereabouts was of course a favourite saying of the sainted Keith Alexander and the title of Rob Bradley’s book on said manager and these stories of doom and gloom have a familiar ring and are a reminder of those wonderful times when Keith would be all over the paper and the radio all week bemoaning the fact that his over parsimonious chairman was expecting him to conjure up a team from nothing and that they were all injured and he and the kitman were likely to be on the bench, only to find that come Saturday everyone was in the rudest of health. Whether there is an element of gamesmanship in any of these pronouncements we shall see come Saturday.

Whatever the situation with available players Macclesfield will take some beating and the side are unrecognisable from last season with new players added only this week in the form of Scott Brown, from Everton no less, Rob Evans and Carl Martin. Macc suffered an away defeat on the first day of the season but recovered to record subsequent home wins to Wrexham and Dartford. Imps have fielded the same starting side for their previous three games, itself a novelty for fans given the hitherto revolving door policy at the 12th Imp Sincil Bank Stadium but that will surely change tomorrow, given what we have been told.