By Nathan Jackson
December 3 2006

City head into Tuesday's home game against Bristol Rovers knowing that avoiding defeat is vital for a promotion push. A defeat could see City slip to 6th if results don't go our way and although a draw doesn't sound like much, it's vital that the Imps stready the ship asap.

It seems an absolute age since the defeat at Wrexham and it's only been 8 days (at the time of writting). Hopefully that seemingly huge gap was enough time for the Imps to regain some confidence are 4 straight defeats that has turned our possible title push to only just holding on to a Top 3 place and defeat against Bristol Rovers could see the Imps slip down to 6th in the table. Whilst this game against Bristol Rovers isn't a must win, it's definitely a must not lose game if we intend on pushing for automatic promotion.

Every team goes through a blip at some stage during the season and it seems the Imps have hit that but worryingly, Swindon and Peterborough have already been through theirs and both are now pushing on but the Imps need to get out of theirs quickly and we couldn't have a more difficult task than doing it against a team that until yesterday, had won their last 6 matches and have won 10 of their last 14 matches.

This is the first game of a very important month for the Imps and out of the 6 games, you get the feeling City will need at the very least 11 points to maintain a automatic promotion push, anything less and you get the feeling that it'll be playoffs at best again.

The main talking points are again Jeff Hughes and Scott Kerr, both of whom have been out injured recently. Although both players have come out in the press saying that they'd be ready by now, you still get the feeling that neither will be playing on Tuesday which could prove the vital difference between the two sides. Assuming neither will play, it will more than likely be the same 11 that started against Wrexham.

Who I think will start (Right to left)

Marriott

Eaden    Moses    Morgan    Mayo

Beevers    Amoo  Frecklington   Nicholson

Forrester   Stallard

	Peteborough			L 1-4
	Wycombe			L 1-2
	Grimsby			W 1-0
	MK Dons			L 0-2
	Luton		LC	D 1-1 (3-5 pens)
	Shrewsbury			W 1-0
	Stockport			L 1-2
	Rochdale			D 0-0
	Torquay			D 0-0
	Darlington			D 1-1
	Walsall			L 1-2
	Hereford			W 2-1
	Chester City			L 0-2
	Boston			W 1-0
	Notts. C			W 2-1
	Torquay		JP	W 1-0
	Macclesfield			D 0-0
	Wrexham			L 0-2
	Wycombe		JP	W 2-0
	Mansfield			W 1-0
	Barrow		FA	W 3-2
	Bury			W 2-0
	Barnet			W 2-0
	Peterborough		JP	W 1-0
	Bournemouth		FA	D 1-1

I must say that I am genuinely surprised that Bristol Rovers haven't been challenging for promotion until the recent few weeks because the way they finished last season, meant that they only lost out of the possibility of the playoffs once City won at Shrewsbury on the penultimate game of the season. It's made even more surprising considering that they brought one of the better players in the division in the summer in the form of Rickie Lambert.

As you can tell via the chart above, Rovers have seriously started to come into form and the run of 6 wins that was ended recently may have only featured 3 league wins over 3 very mediocre teams (4 if you include Wycombe) but before the longer term and arguably more impressive run of 10 wins in 14, they had seriously struggled to be nothing more than a midtable team.

Bristol Rovers are still highly likely to challenge for the playoffs this season and they have a squad that is proven and up front is their particular strong point with impressive duo Rickie Lambert and Richard Barker up front with Lewis Haldane providing half-decent back up.