By Nathan Jackson
November 23 2006

City travel to Wrexham hoping to avoid suffering the "Dakota Theory" that saw them concede a last minute goal last season. It's a meeting of 2 of the most out of form teams in the division and much like last season, City go to the Racecourse on the back of several weeks without a victory.

The first thing I should probably do is explain what the “Dakota Theory” is. Around 16 months ago, the remake of the film, “War of the Worlds” was released and I went to watch it and thought it was a good film……correction, that’s what I would have been thinking if Dakota Fanning hadn’t single-handedly ruined the entire movie. So the “Dakota Theory” is basically when something would normally go really well until something that isn’t needed comes along and buggers it all up.

When the Imps visited Wrexham at the beginning of this calendar year, the Imps were heading to a well earned 1-0 win in a game that the Imps had controlled. Then Ollie Ryan comes on but the Imps remained relatively comfortable. Into the 89^th minute and Gary Birch runs along the line and passes the ball across goal to Ryan who has the goal at his mercy, completely unmarked, just 6 yards out. Not for the first time that season, he shot straight at the goalkeeper and he had an easy catch to make and much like most other wasted easy chances for Ryan last year, Wrexham went down the other end and scored a last minute equaliser with one of their few shots on goal. The “Dakota Theory” at it’s irritating best.

City go to the Racecourse this season in remarkably similar form to last season. It had been 4 games since the Imps had last tasted victory before the trip to Wales last year, this year it’s just 3 games but it’s been 4 games since the Imps put in a half decent performance as the Imps have started to look nervously our their shoulders and a defeat on Saturday could potentially see the Imps go down to 5^th, although goal difference means this is highly unlikely.

City actually have a generally good recent record against Welsh teams, since the beginning of 2001/2, City have won 6 of the 12 meetings home and away against Swansea and Wrexham, losing just twice and with the return of Nicky Eaden, who won 7 of his 10 games for the Imps in his first loan spell, it could hopefully see the return of the Imps’ form that saw them surge up the table early on.

It could really be anyone's guess as to what team will start because the fans are always the last people to find out if a player is injured, meaning that most people thought Scott Kerr was dropped last week for the defeat to Darlington. He is likely to still be out injured along with Jeff Hughes. With Eaden's return on loan it Schofield will probably put him in at right back, move Beevers up to right midfield and push Amoo into the centre midfield in the absence of Kerr. Mayo will probably move in at left-back with returning Shane Nicholson taking the left midfield position.

Who I think will start (Right to left)

Marriott

Eaden    Moses    Morgan    Mayo

Beevers    Amoo  Frecklington   Nicholson

Forrester   Stallard

	Wycombe			1-1
	Grimsby			3-0
	Peterborough			0-0
	Chester			2-1
	Sheffield Wed		LC	4-1
	Barnet			1-1
	Swindon			2-1
	Accrington			0-5
	Stockport			2-5
	Birmingham		LC	1-4 (AET)
	Hereford			1-0
	Rochdale			1-2
	Hartlepool			0-3
	MK Dons			1-2
	Rochdale		JP	1-1 (5-3 pens)
	Mansfield			0-3
	Bristol Rovers			2-0
	Macclesfield			0-0
	Bury			0-1
	Stevenage		FA	1-0
	Notts County			1-2

After an initial good start to the season, the Dragons are now starting to look nervously over their shoulders at the relegation places as they lay just 3 points above the drop zone following a drastic downturn in form. Their form started to take a downturn with a surprise 5-0 defeat at Accrington that was followed by a 5-2 defeat at Stockport and then another 4 conceded at Birmingham in the cup. Since then, they have seen just 2 league wins out of the last 10 league games, losing 7 of the other 8.

Wrexham's main problem this season has been similar to City's, they scored plenty of goals early on but were also conceding a lot and now that the goals has disappeared, they're losing a lot of games because the goals are still flying in at the other end.

Wrexham's best player is former Manchester United star, Darren Ferguson but other than he and youngster Mark Jones, there are no players you'd consider match-winners in the squad and the fact they've put their faith into Maheta Molango to score the goals, shows how desperate the situation at the Racecourse is.