Table toppers Lincoln City aiming to maintain 100% record against Bristol Rovers

Bristol Rovers travel to Lincoln City’s LNER stadium tomorrow looking to win for the second game in a row for the first time since December 2019, when Rovers beat Southend United and then Ipswich Town, in the final league games of Graham Coughlan’s reign.

At the time Rovers sat fourth in the table, but they managed just two more wins in the remaining 16 games before the season was curtailed. As such, this is only the third opportunity the Gas have had to put together back-to-back wins since Coughlan left for Mansfield Town.

The first of those two opportunities was followed up with a heavy defeat at Sunderland, while the second of those two wins was actually against the same opponent in their final match before lockdown, meaning the next competitive game was the first game of this season, a 3-0 cup defeat to Ipswich.

If only focusing on league games, then Ben Garner’s side opened this season with a draw at Sunderland, before they were then comfortably beaten by Ipswich and Doncaster Rovers. They did win last weekend though, a 2-0 victory at home to ten-man Northampton Town.

Ben Garner said: “Lincoln have obviously had a very good start to the season. We don’t pay too much attention to the league table; we look at the games and analyse what they do and where we feel we can win the game.

“They’ve got a good squad. Michael’s done a very good job there in the turnaround that they’ve made.

“We’re looking forward to the game. We think we’ve had two good performances last two games and we’re looking forward to the test at Lincoln tomorrow.”

Rovers are likely to be without Jonah Ayunga, Josh Barrett, Tom Davies, Mark Little and Alex Rodman, but will be boosted by the fact Anssi Jaakola is not on international duty.

Lincoln meanwhile are without three players due to international call-ups. Brennan Johnson was an unused substitute for Wales at Wembley last night, whilst Aaron Lewis (Wales U21) and Zack Elbouzedi (Ireland U21) have also been called up by their national teams.

On top of international commitments, Lincoln are also without Callum Morton, Joe Walsh and Max Melbourne, although Liam Bridcutt and Adam Jackson could return.

In contrast to Rovers’ troubles of late, Lincoln have started the league season with a 100% record and will be looking to make it five out of five this weekend.

Embed from Getty Images

The Imps have beaten Oxford, Milton Keynes, Charlton and Blackpool to start the season, which on paper is a tough set of fixtures, but Lincoln have overcome everything thrown at them to sit top of the table at this stage.

Jorge Grant tops the scoring charts in the division and already has six assists in all competitions, the 25-year-old establishing himself as one of Michael Appleton’s star performers so far this campaign.

When you look at all competitions, it is actually centre back Lewis Montsma who leads the scoring for Lincoln with five goals so far, three of which came in the Carabao Cup.

No side has scored more league goals than Lincoln in the opening four games, and only three have conceded more than Bristol Rovers, but Appleton’s record against the Gas is not good. The former Portsmouth boss has just one win in four meetings, though all came back when he was manager of Oxford United.

Michael Appleton said: “At Oxford they were a little bit of a bogey side of mine. I have come up against them a few times and been on the wrong side of a couple of results that were sore to take at the time so hopefully it will be different tomorrow.

“It’s been an incredibly tough start, it’s just that we’ve come on the right side of the results the first four games. I’ve got no doubts it’s going to be a really tough game tomorrow. They’ve got some real threats, some real dangerous players in their squad and we’re going to be prepared for them.

“We’ve just got to stay humble and keep working really hard and try and make it as hard as we can for the opposition. It’s going to be no different on Saturday, it’s going to be a really tough fixture.”