By Nathan Jackson
August 19 2010

Lincoln City's third League game of the season sees a tricky trick to Gillingham. The Gills are one of the promotion favourites having been relegated in the summer, City on the other hand are now one of the favourites to go down and a defeat to Gillingham would mean three defeats in the first three games for the second time in three seasons, although City did beat Gillingham twice that year.

NOT BEEN TO GILLINGHAM BEFORE? READ OUR GROUND GUIDE PROFILE

If you think back to the time that Peter Jackson was in charge of this football club and asked people to pick out memorable (for the right reason) away games, you'd probably be greeted with a blank expression for a while. After thinking about this myself there were a few that came to mind. Winning 2-1 at Chester City to secure our Football League safety in April 2008, a 3-0 win at promotion chasing Dagenham in March 2009 or last August's 2-0 win at Bradford that saw us go 7^th for a very brief time, but anyone who went to Gillingham will tell you that nothing beat our win there in January of last year.

The Imps were out of form and although they weren't losing man, they weren't winning any and goalkeeper Burch was under-fire following being beaten from 40 yards against Chester. Infact, the whole team was under-fire. Frank Sinclair had his critics all year long, whereas many weren't endeared to Elding and Horsfield, both of whom were playing badly and keeping Patulea out of the squad.

138 fans had made the trip down to Kent on a cold Tuesday evening and watched as Gillingham dominated the first half, only having a Simeon Jackson penalty to show for their dominance. The second half started slowly, but one hopeful swing of Geoff Horsfield's boot from 30 yards levelled the tie. City appeared to be heading for yet another draw, but in the 95^th minute N'Guessan popped up with a memorable winner. It wasn't a deserved winner, but it was certainly very welcome and it secured the double over Gillingham.

To view the fans video from that game, click here.

Skip forward a season and a half and the Imps are in big trouble at the bottom of the division. City are dead bottom of the Football League as it stands, being one of just two teams in League Two not to pick up a point yet. If both us and Crewe lose, then next Saturday will see an early bottom of the table match.

The early signs are that City will struggle. Even though City have controlled long periods of both game so far, there has been no end product at all and the defence has been a shambles with marking that would leave Sunday League teams embarrased. Sutton has started to address the attacking options by bringing in yet another striker, this time Ben Hutchinson from Celtic. The young striker had impressed in the Bhoys' 4-1 win at Sincil Bank a month ago, and is expected to go straight into the squad for Saturday.

Luckily it's still that time of the year when you can still pick up points and move rapidly up the table. In 2002/3 the Imps were 19th after 4 games, a 3-0 win over Macclesfield later and we were fourth, and luckily sitting 24th means that if we're going to go anywhere in the division, it's going to be up. However, we shouldn't just expect results to improve.

We're 24th out of 24 for a reason and Sutton's record would indicate that that is unlikely to improve by much over the course of the season. We were 22nd when he took over last season and we finished just two places higher than that at the end of the season. In 43 games he has had just 12 wins, and two of those came against sides from the Blue Square North, compare that to 20 defeats and the future looks uncertain.

As I said in my match reaction last week, I'm not totally against Sutton and I think that he has made SOME quality signings during his time at Sincil Bank, with Chris Herd being one of my favourite players over the last few years, but the results and performances just aren't good enough as of yet. He has yet to prove anything positive as a manager, the only thing he's proved is that he can lose games quite easily.

Joe Anderson, Chris Fagan, Delroy Facey and Shane Clarke were all involved in the reserves' 2-0 midweek defeat at Hartlepool. Other than Facey, you'd suspect that none of them have any real chance of playing on Saturday, especially as Paul Green is being prefered instead of Anderson at left back.

Scott Kerr could also stay out of the first team as Sutton seems to now prefer O'Keefe and Keltie in the starting XI. Despite this, Scott Kerr is likely to be the only person who played in the game in January 2009 that will take some part on Saturday. Infact, there are only 3 players left in the squad that were in the 16 man squad for that trip to Gillingham, the others being Moses Swaibu and Shane Clarke.

The Imps have no new injury worries ahead of Saturday's game, although they might have one additional player as neither Sutton or Bob Dorrian has denied speculation that another defender is likely to join the club before the game.

THEIMPS.KA OFFICIAL RATINGS
	Anyon will be hoping to make up for the lack of a dive for Torquay United's first goal last Saturday. Has yet to really show what he could do, but then again the defence aren't exactly helping him.
	If we sign another defender than Swaibu won't play. You can't afford to have one good centre back (Watts) and a guy beside him that is like a dog chasing a stick without ever actually getting it.
	Adam Watts, the answer to the question "Who is made to look incomptent by thoses around him?" Watts finally appears to be over his fitness issues following his broken leg and given a decent defensive partner, could finally show how good he is.
	I've never personally rated Green and the Torquay game summed him up. He stood off defenders, rarely tackled and did nothing to prevent the cross for Torquay's second goal. Anderson must be dire if Green is keeping him out.
	Three games in and Hughton still hasn't done anything. He got off to a slow start last season as well before turning into one of our best players.
	Arguably our best player from the opening three games, Jarrett has been one of the few shining lights so far and our season could depend on if he can keep up his early season form. It's also nice to have someone in the team who isn't afraid to shoot.
	Scott Kerr Version 2 continues to get into the starting XI without seemingly doing anything.
	Carayol had a poor game against Torquay and subsequent messages on Torquay forums said that it was a performance they had become very used to over the last few years. However, there is no doubt he, as well as Jarrett, is our best attacking option.
	Hutchinson is set to make his debut for the Imps following on from his loan spell being made official earlier this week. None of his 15 games for Swindon last season came against Gillingham.
	Missed a hatful of chances against Torquay, but at least he was in the right positions and this is something that the other strikers don't offer.

Gilligham are one of the promotion favourites in League Two and have started their season with two draws, including an away game that has now stretched their winless run away from home even further. You'd have to go back to May 2nd 2009 to find their last away win, a 1-0 victory at Rochdale just days before the two clubs met again in the Playoffs.

They had started their time in League One quite well, beating Swindon Town 5-0 on the opening day, made even more impressive given that Swindon reached the Playoff Final that season. However, it's been a long time since then, with Mark Stimson leaving the club earlier this year.

He was replaced by Andy Hessenthaler, whom once had Gillingham regularly finishing midtable in the Championship. He has since assembled a decent squad, fronted by the rather larger Adebayo Akinfenwa. They have lost Simeon Jackson to Norwich though, a big loss given that he scored 21 goals for Gillingham last season.

As mentioned previously, Gillingham have started their season with two draws, 1-1 at home with Cheltenham and a goalless game at Hereford.

Can Imps avoid the hatrick of defeats?

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 19/08/2010 14:16

theimps.ka
19/08/2010 14:16

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davidimp
21/08/2010 22:21

Can we avoid defeat ?
In a word yes!!
Well done boys

Here we go again!
Will we ever get the right man?

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