By Nathan Jackson
October 19 2006

Lincoln City face Rochdale on Saturday, hoping to avoid the 7th 1-1 draw between the sides at Sincil Bank in 8 seasons. However, this might be an interesting game though because City are the top goalscorers in the country, whereas Rochdale are amoungst the longest in the football league.

Over the last 7 days, we've seen two very different performances for the Imps, luckily the better, and arguably the best all season came in the League before the fringe players were eliminated from the JP Trophy. I would be worried about the poor performance except for the fact that half the players who played on Tuesday, probably won't be playing on Saturday afternoon.

It's yet another chance to go top as Walsall have a tricky trip to surprisingly high placed Accrington Stanley, however, City will to improve on their home record against Rochdale. In the 7 meetings at Sincil Bank so far this century, all but one has ended in a 1-1 draw and our home performances against Rochdale haven't exactly been thrilling.

A game against Rochdale certainly isn't the most ideal preperation ahead of next week's difficult tript Swindon but if the Imps can win, it will give the players a confidence boost ahead of a difficult run of fixtures.

The key issue regarding the Imps will be who plays in goal. Usual first team choice, Alan Marriott was injured during the game against Grimsby and Simon Rayner won praise for making several excellent saves. Despite those saves, Rayner will more than likely be dropped if Marriott recovers in time but the question remains about whether he will. Moses and Morgna are also still likely to be out through injury. Other than that, it should be pretty much the same team that destroyed Barnet last week.

Who I think will start (Right to left)

Raynor

Eaden   Beevers   Brown    Hughes

Amoo    Kerr  Frecklington   Mayo

Forrester   Stallard

	Walsall			L 0-1
	Torquay United			L 0-1
	Swindon Town			L 0-1
	Notts. County			L 0-1
	Doncaster Rovers		League Cup	L 2-3
	Accrington Stanley			D 1-1
	Hereford United			D 1-1
	Bristol Rovers			D 0-0
	Grimsby Town			W 1-0
	Wycombe Wanderers			L 0-2
	Boston United			W 3-0
	Wrexham			W 2-1
	Shrewsbury Town			D 1-1
	Darlington			W 5-0
	Chester City			D 0-0
	Wrexham		JP Trophy	D 1-1
Wrexham won 5-3 on penalties

Rochdale started the season like most people expected, failing to win in their first 4 league games and they sat in the relegation zone but they've since recovered and they are sitting in midtable. One thing you can't achieve them off is inconsistancy, getting back-to-back results on 4 seperate occasions so far this season.

However, Rochdale have had problems finding the net in the majority of the games, the same with their opponents. Rochdale have scored more than half their league goals in 2 games, both away to Boston and Darlington. They have however failed to score on 7 occasions so far this season but luckily for them, only one league opponent (Wycombe) has scored more than 1 goals against them.

Having sold Ricky Lambert, Rochdale's main threat is Morike Sako, the tall striker they signed from Torquay during the summer. They've also signed Lee Crooks, who was on trial with the Imps during the summer. Not to forget the small legion of players who have played for our local rivals, former Scunthorpe defenders Nathan Stanton and Mark Jackson, as well as former Mansfield pair Iyseden Christie (on loan at Kidderminster) and Adam Rundle.