Hartlepool United take on Lincoln City

By Albatross
March 4 2003

The games are coming thick and fast for Pools at the moment: after Saturday's game at Darlo, we've now got another tough away game, this time at Lincoln. And then it's Bury at the Vic on Friday night.... So will Pools survive Lincoln's air raid siren?

After all the talk following Saturday's game, it almost seems like tonight's game at Lincoln has been forgotten. But Pools will travel to Sincil Bank knowing that they face yet another tough test.

Lincoln have been one of the surprise packages of the season, confounding most predictions (including mine) that they would struggle. Although they have not maintained the form that saw them as one of our closest challengers back in August, they are still in with a shout of the playoffs from their current 10th place.

The game at the Vic in the middle of September saw them go ahead through Adie Mike before going down 2-1, and gave Pools fans a view of Lincoln's approach this season: a Long Ball system that sometime Lincoln boss John Beck would be proud of. This was highlighted by 6'7" Lincoln defender Ben Futcher being sent upfield not just for corners and free kicks, but also for goal kicks and throw ins!

Lincoln are definately not pretty to watch, which may explain their somewhat disappointing attendances this season - usually the crowd is around the 3000 mark - but the fact that they have a team at all is something of an achievement. The Imps came as close as any team has recently to going out of business last summer, and although they are now on a secure financial footing Keith Alexander has had to scour the non-league and released players lists to build his squad - some, like Adie Mike, playing part time.

Mike seems to have gone missing since the early part of the season, and Lincoln are currently facing a bit of a striker shortage. On Saturday, they started with midfielder Paul Smith and former Lancaster City striker Chris Ward up front, and then had to replace Smith with young New Zealander Allan Pearce at half time. With both Dene Cropper and Simon Yeo missing through injury, and the on-loan Luke Cornwall returning to Fulham, Alexander is short of options - and is still trying to sign a striker today to play in tonight's game. This problem is obviously affecting Lincoln's scoring record; they have scored more than one goal in a game just once in their last 12 games. Their leading scorer is Futcher with just seven, and the next highest scorer likely to be facing Pools is midfielder Peter Gain with four.

Despite this, their record recently is respectable. Currently they are on a run of five games without defeat - although they have just drawn three in a row. Two of those games were away wins, 1-0 at Hull and 4-1 at Carlisle. Saturday saw them draw 1-1 at home to Orient, relying on a late equaliser from a pushed forward Futcher to take a share of the points.

Another factor that is likely to come into play is the pitch. Although some away fans claim it's to help Lincoln by making it harder to play passing football on, Lincoln claim to be as concerned about it as anyone; apparently there's not a lot of grass on it at the moment, and it's somewhat uneven. The weather is hardly likely to help the pitch either, with plenty of rain forecast.

In terms of team news for Pools, it's looking like a familiar picture. Mark Tinkler picked up a slight knock on Saturday but should be fit, and once again the only question is who plays up front. The chances are that it will be Boyd and Williams, but Eifion is very much in need of a goal at the moment; his last one came in the win at Macclesfield, and he has now gone five games without scoring - though in two of those games he was substituted early on.

It's prediction time again then. A couple of weeks ago, I did a run-down of how I thought we'd do in the remaining games; the first two I got right, with a win over Swansea and a draw at Feethams. I predicted a defeat at Lincoln, and to be honest I'm inclined to stick with that: the pitch won't suit our style of play, Lincoln are a tough side to beat, and we have looked vulnerable to set pieces recently - combine that weakness with a giant target in Futcher and it looks ominous. So I'll go for a 1-0 defeat, with the goal coming from a set piece.