By Nathan Jackson
November 22 2007

City are very very slowly creeping up on beating their longest winless run ever in the League. At 13 League games without a win, City are just 7 winless games off going down in history. Saturday's game against Notts County will come a day short of 3 months since City's last win, 15 games without a victory in all competitions since then has seen the Imps slowly starting relegation in the face.

Lincoln's record against Notts County recently has been abysmal to say the least. Out of the 6 games since County returned to this division in 2004, Notts have won 4, City record just one win and the other being last season's opening day draw. Almost without exception the Imps put in terrible performances against the Magpies, with many arguing that last season's 3-1 defeat at Meadow Lane changed our season (even though we won the next two games after that).

There is always a bit of family friction between me and my sister whenever the Magpies face the Imps, with her being a manic County fan. It's safe to say that I've taken a fair bit of stick in the last few years, especially with the Imps in their current predicament thanks to John's Schofield and Deehan seemingly on a mission to ruin our football club.

The Imps come into the game hoping to avoid a 14th League game in a row without a victory, and a victory could potentially see City move out of the relegation zone with both Grimsby and Wrexham both having difficult games over the weekend, Wrexham will also use up one of their games in hand next week as they face an away trip to Rochdale after both teams were eliminated from the FA Cup at the first round stage.

Well City's squad is far from predictable these days. Marriott has some competition in goal and him being dropped (as in not injured or suspended) for a League game for the first time since the 2001/2 could symbolise his exit from Sincil Bank when his contract expires at the end of the season. It is likely Ben Smith will start in goal.

Defensively wise you're probably going to see Gary Croft fill in at left back, the former Grimsby defender still hasn't played in a winning Lincoln side, being injured for our only two wins this season. Hone, Moses and Bencharif will fight out the 2 centre back positions with Paul Green at right back.

With Dany N'Guessan returning from injury it will either be him or Warlow fighting out for the left midfield position, we're fucked either way really. On both sides we've got players who clearly think they are better than they actually are, one on side you've also got a ball-greedy Frenchman, and on the other you'd got a player who is in no danger of working up a sweat, such is his general laziness on the pitch.

Whoever is picked out of those two will almost inevitably have Frecklington, Kerr and Dodds in midfield with them. Ben Wright and the returning Jamie Forrester will more than likely be up front for City.

Now, playing for County are a few ex-City players but the only one I'm going to talk about in depth is Paul Mayo. Now the flack that Mayo got when he was here was unbelieveable, I'm not trying to say that he was a great footballer and I'll admit to being surprised when Watford paid £60,000 for him, but he didn't deserve any of the crap our so called "supporters" gave him.

Mayo was one of those players who would make a mistake and have the crowd on his back, only then for a minute later another player making the same mistake and having their name chanted in a positive manner. It was completely unfair on our last successful product of the youth system before Lee Frecklington.

The biggest insult though came last season as the two John's treated him like crap. In typical Schofield style he dropped Mayo right in the middle of really good form, and it was hardly a surprise when Mayo turned down the chance of a new contract and joined up with County. I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to Paul for all his years of service at the club.

County's squad is full of players who used to play for our local rivals.  Firstly, Jason Lee, Lawrie Dufield (both played for Boston as well), Richard Butcher and Spencer Weir-Daley have all spent parts of their careers at Sincil Bank. McCann and Cannoville both use to play for Boston. Pilkington was at Mansfield for several years and Parkinson was part of the Grimsby side that beat City in the playoffs in 2005/6.

Notts are in an inconsistant team, losing their last game at Macclesfield, the last league game before that saw a respectable draw and a Barnet side doing well for themselves, and two wins in a row over Wrexham and Accrington. Those results came no the back of 4 straight defeats.....predictable they aint.