There's a certain irony about the potential to secure only our second unbeaten run of more than two games under Peter Jackson. Peter's one and only run of more than two League games came in February when City won five in a row, beating Shrewsbury, Macclesfield twice, Rochdale and Accrington, but other than that he has never managed to go three unbeaten in the League, however, Iffy Onuora did. Iffy's run lasted three games back in April and if City avoid defeat on Saturday, it will be against the same three sides, Brentford, Morecambe and Chester.

Now that the random trivia is out of the way, let's face it, City have underperformed so far this season. Morecambe were god awful and yet managed to sneak a point out of the Imps last Saturday. It's fast becoming a tradition at Sincil Bank that we destroy teams and yet fail to beat them, we have controlled most of the games we've played this season and yet we have failed to win all but one. However, if the game at the Saunder's Honda Stadium is anything like it was last season, then City could be in for a good result.

Last season's game saw City dominated by Chester City. In what turned out to be Alan Marriott's last game for the club, he kept out a penalty before being substituted by Ayden Duffy. It wasn't long before Chester were ahead but then the Imps were ahead within about 5 minutes. Chester dominated the remainder of the match and yet couldn't find the back of the net....the only problem is that City no longer have the player who scored both goals that day, Jamie Forrester.

His replacement is a certain Romanian called Patulea, or "The Count" as he has become known by several fans. The striker has certainly impressed in his opening appearances for the club and Scott Kerr recently compared him to Simon Yeo. Kerr said that both have a natural eye for goal and are similar players, let's hope that Patulea's not on the verge of an 8 month run without League goal that "natural finisher" Yeo suffered during his first season.

Patulea is likely to start up front despite missing enough chances to win three games last week, whoever partners him is very much up for debate. No other striker has impressed so far this season and none of them ever look like scoring. However, Ben Wright has now been given a (deserved) run out of the team and hopefully that will make him realise that if he doesn't start performing then he'll be gone when his contract expires in the summer.

Rob Burch will be hoping not to make one of his increasingly occuring mistakes if he starts behind a defence that has several injuries. Frank Sinclair is the only defender definitely out but Paul Green is also likely to miss out due to only just recovering from injury. Lee Beevers will more than likely move into the vacant right-back spot with Aaron Brown slotting in on the left, Kovacs and Hone in the middle.

Midfield will more than likely consist of the usual suspects. Frecklington, N'Guessan and LJL accompanying Scott Kerr. The only player definitely out is Stefan Oakes from the middle of the park.

I'm not going to pretend I like Chester City, but all credit to them, they have now successfully turned a season where it looked inevitable that they would go down into a season where they look like a midtable side, well done Chester. They had an equally bad start as City did, losing their first four games in all competitions. However, much like the Imps, a home game against Chester provided the spark to go on and start a run without defeat and they haven't tasted defeat since August 23th.

With the sale of Kevin Sandwith in the pre-season to Weymouth, Chester now have only one ex-Imp, good old Kevin Ellison (right). The 29 year old played for the Imps in the 2003/4 season when he produced several excellent displays to help the Imps get into their second shot at the Playoffs, ironically a shot ruined by Peter Jackson.

Ellison is easily Chester's best friend and has a habit of doing over City on a regular basis. He has scored a controversial goal and wasn't far away with Chester's "penalty" at Sincil Bank last season.

In other news, Chester recently announced that the Saunder's Honda Stadium is due to be developed and might not be the blandest ground in the division anymore.

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