By Nathan Jackson
February 24 2011

One week after playing top of the table Chesterfield, City travel to bottom side Barnet. The Imps have an excellent record against Barnet, which 9 of the 11 games between the sides since Barnet returned to the League in 2005 ending in a Lincoln victory.

Not been to Barnet before? Read our Ground Guide Profile or alternatively relieve our 5-0 win there in 2006/7

In what could be one of the most important games of the season, the Imps could give themselves an excellent advantage over the drop zone. Infact, realistically speaking it is a game that on paper Lincoln should easily won. We've won 10 of the last 12 meetings against Barnet and the Bees are now bottom of the table with a manager who has never been successful with Barnet at this level, rarely taking them above the status of "one of the relegation favourites".

The Imps come into the game with a run of 6 wins in 9, although the last four have yielded just four points. However, it's on the road where the Imps have started picking up the vital points. Only Bury and Chesterfield have won more on the road than the Imps in League Two and ever since Tilson first took charge of City on the road way back on October 30th, the Imps have only lost once on the road and only failed to score at least twice and two occasions, a 2-1 defeat at Northampton and a 1-0 win at Hereford.

We shouldn't take Barnet lightly though. They may be bottom and may have lost more games than even clean-sheet starved Stockport, but the Imps know that being bottom doesn't mean you're push-overs. A 4-3 win at Stockport and 2-1 win at Cheltenham both came when City were bottom of the table, and as Sutton has stated on several occasions, a run of bad results could see City slip back down the bottom, thankfully we have a ten point gap over the bottom two with two games in hand on both.

With a favourable fixture list coming up, the Imps have an excellent chance of building up the point quickly and could return to thirteenth with a win, although it would take a lot of results going our way and the goal differences taking a massive swing. Barnet could move out of the drop zone with a victory.

Elsewhere in the division there are some interesting fixtures. Stockport and Bradford face off in Peter Taylor's last game for the Bantams, it'll be a six pointer that could bring Bradford to within just three points of the drop zone. Struggling Burton host Rotherham, Morecambe travel to Chesterfield, whereas Cheltenham travel to Stevenage and Southend host Northampton. However, the game in the division is arguably 7th placed Gillingham heading to Shrewsbury.

City have no new injury worries and have been boosted by the news that two of Tilson's good loan signings have extended their deals. Julian Kelly has also extended his loan from Reading.

Scott Spencer has revealed in Thursday's Echo that he is itching to get into the first team but has admitted that he might have to wait until the game against Southend in two weeks to get that opportunity. Ben Hutchinson has also said he will consider joining the Imps if offered a permanent deal....although you'd be hard pushed to find many City fans who would be keen on a similar deal.

THE LIKELY CITY STARTING XI
	Carson is now here for a further two months after a very impressive first month of the season. He has the chance to become the first Lincoln keeper to keep a clean sheet at Barnet since the 5-0 win in October 2006.
	Hunt has also extended his loan spell over the last few days and will more than likely return to the starting line up against Barnet. City have won 5 of the 7 games in which he has played.
	I really should update Watt's picture, he hasn't been bald for almost a year now. Watts gave away a penalty against Chesterfield and will now doubt be desperate to make up for that.
	Danny is making a very late run for Player of the Season and it's still amazing that Sutton didn't think he was good enough, but is easily the best defender at the club this season.
	I don't know why but Tilson seems to rate Kelly highly. His loan spell was extended recently and he will now be at City for another month. He will also be hoping to make up for his mistake for the first goal for Chesterfield last week.
	A run in the first team has done McCallum some good, his confidence is sky high but he is very similar to Manchester United's Nani in the sence that he has to make 10 or so runs before one of them actually produces anything worthwhile.
	Howell's form has gone considerably downhill in recent weeks and his passing ability seems to have completely disappeared. If Tilson starts him back in the centre of midfield then maybe his form of two/three months ago will return.
	If there's a player who is under pressure again then it is O'Keefe. The good goals he was scoring appear to have just been a mask for poor performances and out of everyone in the first team, you'd think his place in the first team was most at risk.
	Carayol has slowly come back into the first team in recent weeks following on from injury. He is another player who needs a good performance if he hopes to maintain his place in the first team.
	Grimes has gone very quiet in recent weeks and it's a good sign that he can do precisely nothing for several games and still score a fair amount of goals.
	Ever since the game at Hereford Facey has generally been a bit poor. He isn't having nearly the same amount of impact as he was having in the middle of that winning run.

If I was going to discuss all of the recent meetings then I would be here for quite some time. Lincoln and Barnet fixtures have often produced a lot of goals in recent seasons. Despite just five goals in the previous three meetings, the previous eleven meetings a whopping 48 goals...and that included smaller scorelines of 1-0 and 2-0. For the sake of saving time, I'm just going to focus on four high scoring meetings between the sides at Underhiil.

We'll start with one of the greatest comebacks ever seen since the turn of the millenium, not that the Imps were happy about it. City, who hadn't won away up until that point in the 2000/1, took a comfortable 3-0 lead after just 26 minutes at Underhill through a Richard Peacock strike and two goals from the prolific Gavin Gordon, however, the comeback started within two minutes as Stuart Niven pulledd one back. Warren Goodhind and Omer Riza pulled Barnet level with 13 minutes to go, but an 80 minute goal from Tony Richards won the game for Barnet, Steve Holmes missed an injury time penalty.

Skip forward five and a half years to the next meeting at Underhill and it was a St Valentine's Day comeback to remember for the Imps. City dominated the first half but Simon Yeo characteristically missing easy chances meant that the Imps weren't on the scoresheet by the time that Strevens popped up with Barnet's first shot to make it 1-0. Tresor Kandol doubled the lead not long after the break but much like the Barnet come back five seasons previous, the comeback started almost immediately with McCombe poking in from close range. Gary Birch came on as substitute eight minutes later and scored near enough straight away, pouncing on a poor goalkeeping kick from Ross Flitney. The game appeared to be heading for a 2-2 draw before Nat Brown stepped up with a remarkable shot from 30 yards first time around to win the game for the Imps.

October of the same year saw an Imps side produce arguably the best away performance since the turn of the millennium as the Imps ran riot in at the end of the Northern Line. Despite Barnet controlling the early parts of the game, a quickfire Jamie Forrester double, one from the spot, and a Lee Beevers fluke (the ball was smashed against him and it deflected in) gave the Imps a 3-0 lead at half time. Forrester completed his hatrick from the spot in the second half before Leon Mettam made it 5-0 with his only goal in a Lincoln shirt.

Skip forward 18 months and after finding themselves 3-0 up at half time in the last meeting at Underhill, City were on the other end of the equation as goals from Birchall, Adomah and Thomas gave Barnet the three goal lead at half time. Birchall and Porter made it 5-0 just after the hour mark before a bit of history was made. Ben Wright came off of the bench to replace Stallard and became the first, and to date only, Lincoln substitute to score twice after coming off of the bench. It effectively ended any remote chance that the Imps would finish in the top seven that season.

The clubs haven't shared that many players over the last eleven and a bit years either. Current Imp Albert Jarrett was at Barnet last season, whereas Barnet's on-loan Anthony Pulis had a loan spell at Sincil Bank last term. Rob Burch and Junior Agogo complete the quartet.

Another year, another relegation battle for Barnet. Having only just survived on the final day of last season, they underwent a major transformation in the summer, changing manager, players and coaching staff.....and the result, another relegation battle. Barnet are one of those teams that regardless of personnel or manager, they are destined for a drop zone every year.

Strangely, they certainly weren't the worst side to come to Sincil Bank this season and had it not been for Ben Hutchinson's penalty, they would have got a very deserved point. However, the joint worst home record in terms of defeats (tied with Lincoln), as well as the second worst away record in the entire division, is certainly a recipe for disaster but they are far from adrift. As I mentioned earlier in the article they could climb out of the drop zone with a win, but the fact Burton have six games in hand over them means that they would probably only move out of the relegation zone on what could be considered a "token" removeable.

They have added to their squad with striker Kwame JJ Adjeman-Pamboe from FC Tampa Bay in America. The London born striker has had a spell in Finland's second division before his spell in the states. Elsewhere Izale McLeod (right), formerly profile at this level, did have a good start for Barnet but has recently gone off of the boil. To be honest, their squad doesn't have a single obvious star, the only team in the division I can really say that about.

Barnet have only won once this calendar year, a 3-1 win over Bradford. Their last twelve matches have produced six defeats, five draws and just the one win. During that time they've only scored more than once on two occasions, not scoring for four games in a row at one point.

From one extreme to the other as City go to Barnet

Discussion started by theimps.ka (IP Logged), 24/02/2011 20:09

theimps.ka
24/02/2011 20:09

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