By Slevin Morgan
February 12 2010

There aren't many games where you could say that Lincoln would be happy with a point, but going against a Rotherham side who have won their last five matches against the Imps, it's hard to look beyond a draw being a good result for the Imps, especially as they are in a promotion battle again.

Rotherham are the proverbial Trojan Horse when it comes to Lincoln City. We'll start with a bit of a history lesson for all those who don't get the reference. The Trojan War took place in the Greek state/country of Troy between the Trojans and the Achaeans (basically the rest of Greece) after Paris, one of the princes of Troy, had an affair with Helen of Sparta from Menelaus. After a long war which Troy pretty much dominated it appeared that the war had been won and the Trojans they relaxed, bringing into the city a massive wooden horse that they believed had been left as a gift by the Achaeans. However, the horse was nothing more than a hiding place and method of transport for the Achaeans and they ransacked the city during the night and won the war.

I'm sure you're pretty much wondering why Rotherham remind me of that. It's basically because it doesn't matter how much we control the game or how many times we take the advantage, Rotherham always spark a surprise to change the game. The game at the Don Valley earlier this season was one such example. The Imps dominated early on until a characteristic mistake from Kovacs allowed Le Fondre to launch a stunning attack and open the scoring. That made it five straight wins in the League that the Millers have over the Imps.

Both have played Darlington in the last week and whilst Rotherham lost, City snuck a point at the last minute, mainly thanks to the constant Darlington time-wasting resulting in a massive seven minutes of added time. That draw re-establishes a nine point gap over Grimsby, a massive gap considering they could break their club record for the longest run without a League win at Bradford tomorrow.

At this stage of the season you have to realistically say that nine points should (key word) be enough to avoid the drop, but we certainly can't afford to be complacent as we saw recently just how quickly fortunes can change. Next week's game at Grimsby will be massive.

City go into the game with no new major injury worries but one definite absentee from the team that started at Darlington is Delroy Facey. The lump that called himself a striker scored just one goal in his nine games in a City shirt, one producing one performance that could be deemed as half-decent. Otherwise there probably won't be a lot of change to the side that gained a point at Darlington.

OUR EXPECTED CITY STARTING LINE UP
	The goalkeeper made his Imps debut against the Millers in August 2008 but has yet to keep a clean sheet against them. He has also failed to keep a clean sheet since November. Hopefully Rotherham won’t shoot from distance.
	Watts returned from injury against Darlington on Tuesday and put in a reasonable performance. That game against Darlington marked his 15th League appearance for the Imps.
	With Baker still injured, it is likely that  Swaibu will continue in the heart of the defence. Although he was at fault for the second goal against Chesterfield, he reacted by playing well for the rest of the game and against Darlington.
	With Paul Green seemingly injured and not even travelling to Darlington on Tuesday (spending his time in Starbucks), Hone should continue at right back after impressing there on Tuesday.
	Despite being a Lincoln player for 6 weeks, Anderson will play only his second game at Sincil Bank due to the postponements of games over Accrington and Dagenham.
	Kerr is the only player likely to start that has played in all five of the defeats City have had to Rotherham since the Millers returned to the division. The midfielder is likely to play his 15th straight match for the Imps, not bad for a player who Sutton didn’t seem to rate as he dropped him for nearly over a month.
	Hughton’s continual improvement at Sincil Bank has seen scouts watching him in recent weeks. He has arguably been our best player in our last two home games.
	<----Chris Herd    How Chris Herd doesn’t get injured more often is amazing considering he is hacked down as often as he is. The defeat to Rotherham earlier in the season prompted Sutton to bring in Herd and he joined just a few days after that defeat.
	Gilmour came the closest to scoring in normal time against Darlington and looks the most likely out of any of those you could class as a striker to actually get a goal, that despite spending playing the majority of his time in midfield.
	Paul Connor never actually looks like scoring and has only managed to have ten shots in his eight appearances for the club.As it stands, he hasn’t done a lot to justify being offered a new contract in the summer and will soon have to start producing if he wants to stay much longer.
	<---Steven LennonWith Facey gone, Lennon could finally get his chance to start a game after impressing in his two appearances from the bench in recent weeks.

After being a team who had Playoff form for most of the year in the previous season, Rotherham were installed as one of the title favourites this season. They quickly went about backing up this claim by winning all but one of their opening six games of the season and taking West Brom to extra time in the League Cup after beating Derby in the first round.

A 0-0 draw at Morecambe signalled a change in form and they would only win two League games between September 12^th and November 14^th, followed by three straight wins.  However, their form has gone slight awry again and they have only won four games in all competitions since beaten City on November 24^th. That bad run also includes two defeats to Darlington. If they want to keep up a promotion challenge then they will need to start picking up results on a more regular basis.

The obvious star of the Rotherham United squad is Adam Le Fondre. The former Rochdale and Stockport striker has been in red hot form this season and has scored 21 goals in all competitions, 12 ahead of Kevin Ellison, the next highest goalscorer. Drewe Broughton is continuing his usual strike rate for a season with 3 goals so far.

Broughton's agent must be brilliant at his job to get him this many clubs in the Football League. He almost joined City from Rushden in the 2005/6 season but an injury caused him to turn down the move as he didn't want to represent the Imps at only 50%. Rotherham's only ex-Imp is Ellison. City no longer have any former Rotherham players in their line-up after Jamie Clarke left by mutual termination several weeks ago.

As previously mentioned, City have lost every single game against the Millers since Rotherham were relegated in 2007. In all started with a Derek Holmes scoring a hatrick at Sincil Bank in a 3-1 win for Rotherham, City made the return trip a few weeks later and despite taking the lead through Louis Dodds, the Imps would go on to lose 3-2.

Both meetings in 2008/9 ended 1-0 to Rotherham. The first came on the opening day of the season when City, who were one of the promotion favourites, were the first team to visit the Don Valley Stadium. Rotherham had started the year on -17 because of various financial difficulties, but Reuben Reid scored the only goal just before half time.

The game at the Don Valley earlier this season was a strange affair. The Imps dominated the first half but found themselves behind when Janos Kovacs swung wildly at the ball from a corner and ended up hitting it upfield to Le Fondre and he subsequently went on to score. Le Fondre also doubled the lead with an acrobatic effort before missing a penalty.

This game has been made more interesting by Rotherham's recent poor form, but I still feel they are too strong for the Imps. Although City have improved immensely since that 2-0 defeat at Rotherham, we have still lost 9 League games compared to just 5 wins since Sutton took over, and that could easily become 10 after the game against Rotherham.

Lincoln 1 Rotherham 3

Can Imps be merry against the Millers?

Discussion started by theimps.tk (IP Logged), 12/02/2010 12:40

theimps.tk
12/02/2010 12:40

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