City have a terrible record against the Quakers. The last victory that the Imps had against Darlington was back in 2004 when Simon Yeo, Marcus Richardson and Richard Butcher scored the goals in a 3-0 demolition at Darlington's new arena. Since then the Imps have last the majority of meetings between the sides, including Darlington securing all six points against City last season.

Both sides are going into this game ahead of replays against non-league opposition next week. The Imps have a home game against Kettering Town, a fixture that will surely been full blooded after what has happened in recent days, and Darlington have to travel to Droylsden. Both sides would have been expecting more against their non-league opponents and both will no doubt be hoping to get the three points on Saturday.

The Imps haven't been at their best recently. Despite winning two of the last three games, City haven't actually played well in all but the first half against Gillingham. We were rather fortunate to beat Bournemouth and although we dominated against Port Vale, we simply couldn't score. Infact, whilst I'm on the subject, our strikers are worryingly out of form. Patulea hasn't looked like scoring in weeks, LJL never looks like scoring, Wright and Graham never play and the less said about Gall's attacking abilities (three words that are rarely put together) the better. Without a new striker,we won't be going anywhere.

City will more than likely have a familiar looking first team on Saturday. Burch will continue in goal with Green, Hone, Beevers and Kovacs in the back four. The defence has been doing a relatively decent job recently, we're no longer conceding scrap goals and that could very well be the difference against Darlington, a side who we regularly concede sloppy goals to.

The midfield is anyone's guess really. Oakes can be injured by a gust of wind and will probably miss out. N'Guessan is City's most inform player at the moments and the opposite wing player would be consistently worst player in a City shirt, LJL. Kerr and Frecklington and likely to form a familar central midfield.

As mentioned earlier, the strikers options certainly need to be looked at, but in all honesty it's almost certainly going to be Patulea. However, Jackson has shown that he is willing to give Ben Wright a chance again and if anyone is going to replace Patulea, it'll be Wright.

Darlington's poor form from the end of last season continued into this and they got off to a poor start, they've certainly picked up though, losing just once in all competitions since September 6th. That run includes winning seven of their last ten games. Infact, they had won five games on the trot before the Droylsden game.

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