Match Day 6
Preston North End Away.
Lincoln City return to Deepdale after 27 years, ending 5-0 to Preston. This time Preston are looking up at every single team in the Championship as they are rock bottom with 1 win over Blackburn, Lincoln couldn’t score past Blackburn and that was with Blackburn having 10 men for the last 20 minutes although we did dominate the game we all know by now that means nothing, getting the ball in the back of the net is aim of the game and Preston did that twice.
We go into the match high of confidence, well in the league anyways, we got a late equalizer against Southampton, a game which could have gone either way but a few of the team impressed especially Andrei Coubis who was playing in an unfamiliar position of right wing back and managed to get into some good positions and whips some very good crosses in, another player who impressed, and has impressed all season is Freddie Draper, his off the ball movement and aggression causes problems for every defence that he has managed to go up against, he will win 50% of headers against most opponents and run them down, and he nearly scored against Southampton thanks to a very good cross from Andrei Coubis.
Lincoln’s XI
It will be our usual 5-2-3 formation with the striker being either Ben House or Rob Street, if it is Ben House, he didn’t run down the Southampton defence which he normally does he had returned from an injury and it would be wise not to push yourself too much, I think we will see the pitbull that we normally see from Ben House. But if he is on the wing with Rob Street as the striker we will see good link up play between the both, I am hoping it will be Ben House in the attacking role and Rob Street on the right.
Wickens starts in goal, which will probably not change any time soon and he has had a good start to the season.
Reach and Coubis will be the wing backs, they are both very attacking players and will put some good crosses in like the game against Southampton, also Reach brings a good dead ball delivery, as well as scoring from freekicks.
Oyegoke, Bradley and Elerewe will be the centre back, left to right respectively, which has been a very good solid defence and they will be big aerial threats from long throws and corners. It's great to see Bradley back after an injury and did not look rusty at all.
Midfield will be McGrandles and Bayliss, they both bring very good link up play as well as dictating the tempo, although they wont get many goals they can see the passes to the wingers to cause problems down the wing, they are both comfortable on the ball and you won't be holding your breath when they do take on other players in dangerous positions, a solid duo who will be more defensive than attacking but in this league you need to defend. Bayliss also produces very good corners as well as freekicks so I would predict a goal coming from a Bayliss assist.
Attack will be Hackett and Street/House on the wings left to right respectively and Street/House as the lone striker, Street has not been up to the cut yet but he has goals in him and he will come good it might need a bit more time, Hackett has proven he is up to the level but unfortunately he is very inconsistent and when he has a bad game he has a really bad game so lets hope we get a good Hackett today. As for the striker situation, I was actually getting annoyed on transfer day as we kept bringing in strikers, strikers who can't play on the wing, and we are overloaded with strikers and now I don't think Draper will be getting the game time he needs. He should have gone on loan seeing as we brought in 2 other strikers, yes we do have a mountain of a man as a striker who will win a lot more headers than Draper, lets hope Draper gets 30 minutes and gets a goal.
The Substitutions
Gauci, Towler, Ladefoged, Jefferies, Olaofe, Varfolomeev, Konak, Ogbene, Draper
Analysis
This will be a game where I predict that we will be mixing it up to confuse Preston, maybe 10 minutes of booting the ball to the striker with a knock on for the wingers, and then 10 minutes of wing play with Coubis and Street/House linking up and putting some dangerous balls for Steet/House, and also Reach and Hackett doing the same, it worked very well against Southampton a solid team who could possibly go to the Premiership this season, although there wasn’t much wing play the crowd and staff did need to see what the new striker could do when it was booted to him and he looked very good at heading, and actually got his 1st goal from a header, who knows he might be able to do some 30 yard screamers if we actually play that style of football but don't get your hopes up.
Prediction
Will we put more misery on Preston? I don't think we will; we are away from home, and they managed to score 2 past Blackburn, a team we didn’t manage to score a single goal past. A reasonable prediction will be 1-1, with an early goal from House and us then trying to wind the clock down. I would say Varfolomeev and Draper to come on in the 60-65 minute mark, Jefferies and Konak in the 70-75 minute mark and then 85-90 minute mark Laderforged to come on.
Regardless of the result, it's a great achievement to get the championship and go up against a team we haven’t played for 27 years. Let's make some noise and bring home them precious 3 points !
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