Saturday’s opponents Lincoln City boast perhaps the most curious home record in football so far this season.
The Imps have played seven times at their home ground, the LNER Stadium, formerly Sincil Bank, and are unbeaten. However, they have only won one of those games. They beat Derby County 2-0 in September, but have drawn the other six clashes.
They sit 14th in the table, with 22 points from their 16 games. Away from Lincoln, their fortunes have been more mixed. They have won four times on the road, including an extraordinary 6-3 win at Bristol Rovers, but have lost four times too.
Since their goalfest in Bristol, Lincoln have scored just four times in seven games. Those games, though, have included 1-0 wins at Ipswich Town and Barnsley. Their most recent league game was a 1-1 home draw with Accrington Stanley, and prior to that a 1-0 loss at Port Vale.
Last weekend, Lincoln were knocked out of the Emirates FA Cup by National League South side Chippenham Town, but redeemed themselves by winning away at Sky Bet Championship side Bristol City in the Carabao Cup in midweek.
Attacker Jack Diamond is Lincoln’s top league goalscorer, scoring his five goals from just ten starts. He is on loan from Sunderland, having had three separate previous loan spells with Harrogate Town. Striker Ben House, who signed from Eastleigh in the summer, has four goals.
Jordan Garrick, who spent last season on loan at Home Park, has played 11 times this season for Lincoln on loan from Swansea City. Curiously, Argyle have another Swansea loan player this season, Morgan Whittaker, who was borrowed by Lincoln in the second half of last term.
Lincoln are managed by Mark Kennedy, who took over in the close season from Michael Appleton, who left for Blackpool. Kennedy has previously had a short spell managing Macclesfield Town, as well as coaching roles in Manchester City and Ipswich Town’s academies. He left a job as assistant manager at Birmingham City in order to take over at Lincoln.
Last season, Argyle drew 2-2 at the LNER Stadium, with goals coming from Ryan Hardie and Brendan Galloway. At Home Park, the Imps won 2-1. In both game, Lincoln scored very late goals.
Schumacher Says
“It is a hard place to go and win. They’ve played a lot of the big teams and got good results: Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley, they won away at Ipswich. They are obviously not an easy team to play against. They have got a spirit and a fight within them.
“Going forward, they’ve got speed, a good work rate at the top end of the pitch, and they are a threat on the counter-attack. That is something we will have need to be aware of, so we don’t cause ourselves too many problems."
Team News
Dan Scarr and Conor Grant will miss out because of injuries sustained against Grimsby last weekend, with the former likely to miss four-to-six weeks of action, and the latter up to four months.
Long-term injuries continue to rule out Danny Mayor, James Bolton Finn Azaz and Mickel Miller, although Steven Schumacher reports the latter to be resuming contact training with a few to playing in the upcoming Papa Johns Trophy tie.
Macaulay Gillesphey is fit and rejoins the squad.
Tickets
Pay on the day will be available at the LNER Stadium, from the visitors’ ticket window located at the club store. These can be bought via card payment only. Tickets will not be available on the turnstiles. Sales will be from 1pm on the day of the game.
Tickets booked for collection will be available from the Home Park Ticket Office until 3pm on Thursday, 10 November. After this, all remaining tickets will be sent to Lincoln for collection on the Saturday. This will from the visitors’ ticket window located at the club store from 1pm on the day of the game.
Argyle TV
The game will be covered on Argyle TV, with commentary from Charlie Price and Katie Middleton. Both will be on hand for a pre-match show which will be available for free on YouTube from 2pm.
Audio commentary of the game is available for £2.50 in the UK, and live video streaming is available for overseas supporters.
