Time to put up or shut up.

Or as Chris Moyses told the Echo, January is make or break month. Christmas is reckoned to be the point at which you make your pitch. Your end of season finishing place will match your position then.

If that’s the case, City are sunk and of course the less said about the Christmas results the better. Can the Imps rescue themselves after the disastrous yuletide performances? Time will tell. I really must move on from this but, you don’t need me to tell you this, the slump coincided with the absence of Liam Hearn on an ill-fated sojourn at Barrow. Ill-fated for the City striker, ill-fated for City.

Can City recover? Well Hearn is back, he scored at the weekend and new recruits are arriving, dead wood (sorry Nolan but you were the author of your own misfortune) has been jettisoned, fringe players out on loan and hopefully a new resolve can be conjured up to get the show back on the road.

So far there has been no banner signing to underscore City’s new and novel, for us, situation of having a bit of cash to throw at the problem. I say bit of cash because the amounts City are due to receive from our new investor are a trifle compared to the sums being pumped in to some clubs I could mention. That’s not to say we’re ungrateful.

Moyses was at pains to underline the threat posed by Dover if they are to get back to winning ways at Sincil Bank tomorrow. There is a ray of hope though:-

"Dover have done really well, they are flying at the moment, but they will be without their top scorer Stefan Payne for the game as he is suspended,"
"He is their main goal threat, so that will be an advantage for us.
"We need to focus on ourselves, though. We need to get the work done and get three points. It is important we get back to winning ways as this is a big month for us.
"It is a make or break month. We need to take each game on its merits and hopefully come away with three points each time."

The Imps are going to have to if they want to prosper. That Christmas spell has left no margin for error. Moyses recognises the need to win and keep winning if they want to end up in the playoff mix come the end of the season:-

"We started the game looking fresh and lively and I was pleased at how we passed the ball at times. There is a lot of positives to be taken from it,"
"It was a pity we couldn't hang on for the win. I have looked back at both the goals we conceded and they are down to ourselves, so we will work on that."