INTRODUCTION

After the abysmal performance against Hartlepool in the FA Cup last week, the Imps travel up north again to face their victor's local rivals, Darlington. Darlington are the place above the Imps in the table and are ahead of the Imps on goal difference by 3 goals. A win for the Imps could potentially see the Imps move into the playoffs which at the minute, looks very, very unfamiliar with teams that are usually found down at the bottom in or around the playoffs.

Leyton Orient, Macclesfield, Southend and Boston currently occupy the playoff places and, with no disrespect to those teams but I didn't except to see any of them in the top half this season (with the exception of Macclesfield and Boston) but never dreamed that they'd challeging for promotion.

+TEAM NEWS FOR THE IMPS

The midfield should be interesting to see as Gain, Toner and Peat are all injured. Michael Blackwood is set to return from injury and has said he'd relish a great oppurtunity to move into the midfield positions. Other than that, it should be a similar team to that that started against Hartlepool.

Marriott

Bloomer  McAuley  McCombe  Futcher   Sandwith

Butcher  Blackwood

Yeo   Richardson   Taylor-Fletcher

DARLINGTON

Remember earlier that I said there were a lot of teams challenging for promotion that normally looking to be heading to the conference rather than League 1, well Darlo are one of them but some excellent pre-season signings have propelled the Quakers, suprisingly up the table.

I am not a big fan of Darlo to be honest, I've only seen us play away their twice, once at Feethams, once at the Reynolds Arena (which has since been renamed), both in November and both with appaling weather and both, 0-0 draws. Infact, I've seen us play Darlo 10 times and every single time has ended in a draw.

After getting off to a slow start to the season, Dave Hodgson's team has slowly crawled up the table. Their home record so far this season is quite impressive, 3 wins, 3 draws and 2 defeats.

Their last result was a 2-1 defeat away at Swansea on Tuesday night.

Darlington are currently 9th in the table, the place above the Imps and only have one major injury worry, former Premiership star, Craig Hignett who will almost certainly miss the game. The biggest threat to the Imps will be the well travelled, Clive Wijnhard who has been in his usual prolific form this season.

PREVIOUS RESULTS AGAINST DARLINGTON

As I said earlier, the most recent results have all been draws and the last two seasons have produced exactly the same results at both venues

2002/3 and 2003/4

Lincoln City 1 Darlo 1

Darlo 0 Lincoln City 0

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