The Imps travel down to Crawley’s Checkatrade Stadium for the very first time this coming Saturday with both teams on a good run of form with City having lost just the one game in their last 13 league games (17 in all fixtures). Here are the respective records of both sides over the last 13 League Two games:
Lincoln City – W7 D5 L1 F23 A12 Pts 26 – GD+11
Crawley Town – W9 D0 L4 F21 A15 Pts 27 – GD+6
Fairly identical records, then.
Earlier this season, Crawley gained a creditable 0-0 draw at Sincil Bank with five of City’s starting 11 that day not going to appear this week end; Josh Vickers is injured and the other four, Sean Raggett, Rob Dickie, Nathan Arnold and Jordan Maguire-Drew, have all left the club. Crawley’s team that day included four players who didn’t play for them in their 4-1 defeat at Luton on Tuesday.
I imagine that Danny Cowley will start with the same back line as on Tuesday with Scott Wharton keeping his place. I suspect that Harry Anderson may well get the nod ahead of Danny Rowe who took a knock on Tuesday with Michael Bostwick and Alex Woodyard providing the midfield stability as usual. This leaves one midfield place up for grabs, assuming the two Matts will start up front, and I reckon DC will stick with Tom Pett who has yet to hit the ground running in my opinion. I worry as to the level of Lee Frecklington’s injury and hope that it isn’t more serious than DC is letting on. Indeed, we seem to be suffering a lot from injuries recently and it was very interesting to hear Danny’s comments after the game on Tuesday when he clearly blamed the pitch. This beggars the question, what has happened to our pitch this season? Historically, we have always had a decent playing surface at Sincil Bank but this year it is awful. In my opinion, we not only need to get the training ground up and running soonest but we also need to spend some money on the match day surface as well.
Still on the team front, what a breath of fresh air Ryan Allsop has turned out to be. In his three starts to date, he has let in just one goal (Vs Chelsea) with a clean sheet at Cambridge on Friday night followed by another Vs Cheltenham on Tuesday (incidentally, only our fourth ever win in the Football League against them). It is beginning to look like Paul Farman’s time at Sincil Bank is coming to an end and maybe that’s right; he has, however, been an outstanding servant to Lincoln City and we must never forget that.
For Saturday’s fixture, we were given an initial allocation of 500 places seated and another 500 places standing but, whilst it would be nice to see another 1,000+ away following, I don’t think we’ll do it this time, but, in fairness, I haven’t seen any updates on ticket sales. Crawley’s average home attendance this season is 2,063 which should easily be beaten on Saturday. Whether or not we help them to beat their highest gate so far, 3,494 (Vs Luton Town on 21 October 2017) is another matter.
Final score: I have great faith in our defence right now and feel that it is looking stronger with every game. Wharton seems to be the right replacement for Sean Raggett and Allsop has also made a big difference. I therefore predict a third successive clean sheet and a late winner at the other end to claim a very valuable win and three points. Crawley Town 0 Lincoln City 1.
Thank you to Graham Burrell and Lincoln City FC for the photographs.
Match Preview: @CrawleyTown v @LincolnCity_FC:https://t.co/8yUXIA1Gi0#Crawley #ImpsAsOne #EFL
— Vital Lincoln City (@VitalLincoln) February 16, 2018
