The last League 2 game at Sincil Bank?

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Kick off : 5:15pm

Well, we've made the playoffs again and Saturday sees the potential to be the last League 2 game at Sincil Bank for sometime. Despite being 3rd favourites in the playoffs, the Imps are firm favourites to get past Macclesfield Town.

So the home season ends tomorrow and looking back, we can be very proud of our home record in 2005 so far, dropping only 7 points at Sincil Bank since the turn of the year. However, all Imps fans expecting to roll over the Silkmen will have another thing coming as the Chesire team have nothing to lose.

Also, tickets closed for sale on Friday evening and the ticket sales mean that Lincoln fans will outnumber Macclesfield fans by around 15 to 1.

Simon Yeo returns from illness after missing the Yeovil game and will go straight into the squad. Last week a lot of fringe players had their chance to stake a claim in the squad and to be honest, none of them managed it so chances are the first choice starting 11 will start the game. The only definate absentee is Francis Green who is more than likely to miss the rest of the playoffs.

Most likely formation (Right to left)

Marriott

McAuley     Morgan        Futcher     McCombe     Sandwith

Butcher    Gain

Yeo      Asamoah   Taylor-Fletcher.

Macclesfield and Lincoln have been inexerably linked since the Silkmen came into the league in 1997. Lincoln are the only side who have played against Macclesfield every season since they won the conference. 1997/8 saw Macclesfield's best season as they got promoted to the old Division 2. However, in all the seasons since, they have either been relegated or come close to it. However, Brian Horton's appointment last summer has paid suprising dividends. Not even the most of optimistic Macclesfield fans could have expected the season they'd just had.

The Silkmen finished the season on 75 points leaving them in 5th place despite only Yeovil and Scunthorpe winning more games than them. Their home form is impecable 15 wins from a possible 23 with a furthur 3 being draws. There away form is not quite as impressive but is a major achievement considering what it used to be like. Infact, the 10 defeats on the road from 23 games probably cost Macclesfields automatic promotion.

I'm not going to delude myself or others, I think this will be an extremely hard tie for both sides. Whoever goes through to play at Cardiff in 15 days will have definatly earned it, however, I still believe the team that wins the playoffs will come from the other semi final, Northampton vs Southend.