Lincoln City look to register winning start to their home campaign as they entertain Fleetwood Town

Having had a disrupted pre-season with a number of injuries to existing and incoming personnel, Lincoln City are still very much finding their way to fitness as Michael Appleton looks to settle his new-look side into the season.

Playing in front of an expected 10,000 home fans, the first time since March 2020, the Imps boss and his players are fully looking forward to being buoyed on despite having a taste of returning fans during their play-off victory over Sunderland in May.

Whilst the atmosphere was special on that occasion, there are a number of new faces at the club that will get their first taste of the home support. Speaking during his pre-match press conference to local press, Appleton acknowledged that having fans back in has been on everybody’s lips throughout the club corridors this week.

“I can’t wait. Hopefully it’s an absolute full house”

“The players are talking about it. A lot of the lads who were here missed out on it until the Sunderland game. It was a brilliant the atmosphere that day, it was great.

“We’re chomping at the bit for the game to come round. It can’t come round soon enough.”

Home supporters will be excited to be roaring on their side as they look to record their first win of the season. An opening day 1-1 draw at Gillingham was followed up by a disappointing penalty shootout defeat to Shrewsbury Town in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday evening.

Drawing 2-2 at full-time, in a game that had seen Lincoln go two goals up early in the second half, Appleton was pleased with his side’s performance despite his disappointment of being knocked out in the opening round.

An injury to Lewis Montsma, withdrawal of goalscorer Teddy Bishop and summer signing Hakeeb Adulekan all contributed to disrupting Lincoln’s momentum in a game where they were on top. Still getting up to match speed, the game swung into Shrewsbury’s favour, fighting their way back into the game with two goals in the final 20 minutes.

It was a result, however, that Michael Appleton was not too nonplussed about in his post-match reflections.

“We completely dominated the game because it could have been 4,5 or 6 goals but obviously, I have to make the changes for the good of the players because I put them at risk if I play them beyond 70 minutes. We had to make three changes very very quickly so it was a big disruption our game.

“When I look at the first 70 minutes and how well we played, how well we passed the ball and some of our players showed their capabilities, I know they’re more than capable”

One real positive from the evening was Bishop scoring his first goal for his new club. Having received the ball from fully 25-yards out from goal, the midfielder hit an absolute bullet into the top corner. It was a strike the travelling Lincoln fans would have had a full view of sat behind the goal.

Bishop, who joined in the summer from Ipswich Town, was delighted with his goal on Tuesday as he gets game time under his belt. Imps’ new signing enjoyed playing in a midfield containing Conor McGrandles, youngster Max Sanders and were latterly joined by Manchester City loanee Lewis Fiorini.

“It’s massive for me because I’ve had 45 minutes, a week and a half ago, I had obviously 15 minutes on Saturday and it just needs to keep building. It has been a frustrating preseason. I have not got as many minutes as I would have liked but I can definitely catch up quite quickly and we’ve got games coming thick and fast so hopefully, I can get in the team and stay in the team.

“We haven’t got a massive squad but I think there’s a lot of quality in the squad. Someone could go out but somebody else can come in,  it’s all quality players. I really enjoyed playing with them tonight. I think there’s quality all across the pitch, especially the midfield, and I’m looking forward to playing in that style this season”

Looking ahead to the visit of Fleetwood Town, Appleton hopes to welcome back influential midfielder Liam Bridcutt and centre half Adam Jackson. The Imps boss also remains hopeful that Lewis Montsma will be able to play despite his injury sustained in midweek but in that eventuality, the Dutch defender will be expected to be wearing protective strapping to get him through the game.

Fleetwood have not had the most positive of starts with an opening day home defeat to Portsmouth in a game they enjoyed the best part of. That disappointment was followed up with another defeat at Championship Stoke City in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday evening.

Boss Simon Grayson knows that it’s certainly not a time to panic but knows that his side won’t be in for an easy ride at Sincil Bank.

“I think the play-offs from last season are a thing from the past now as they have quite a few new players in the group now – I’m sure they will be using the motivation of losing a play-off final for the whole of the season, not just the first few games.

“You are heading to their place and it’s the club’s first home game of the season so it will be quite a vocal crowd. We’ve got to withstand any pressure we get from them early on and have to make sure we implement what we want to do in the game so we can try to replicate the result and performance we got when we went down there last campaign.”

Having inflicted a surprise 2-1 home defeat on the Imps back in March, Grayson will not be daunted by the task at hand and having made six changes for the midweek cup game, the Cods are expected to be back to full strength.

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