By Nathan Jackson
January 28 2008

Lincoln City have a brilliant opportunity to move even further away from the drop zone when they face Mansfield Town. A win would mean City move 9 points clear of their opponents. Both sides have slowly had improving form over the past few months but neither have been able to pull away from the drop zone before falling straight back into it, and City will be aiming to end a worrying trend.

City have been rather inconsistent under Peter Jackson's tenure. Each time we've won a game, we've subsequently lost the next game and City will hope that record doesn't continue after a win on Saturday. Also a completely irrelevant stat is that City have started the game kicking towards the Stacey West in every single home game since Chesterfield beat the Imps 4-2 back on November 6th. See, we always try to bring you the completely random and sometimes irrelevant on this website.

Games against Mansfield are always special for myself, not only because it's a local derby but also because I was born in Sutton-in-Ashfield (just outside Mansfield for the geographically-impared) but I have a far from happy record watching my side against Mansfield at Sincil Bank. In my 6 visits to Field Mill I've failed to see us losing, winning 4 of those games and drawing the other 2. At home however I've only seen us beat the Stags twice, back in the 2003/4 and 2004/5 meetings.

Lincoln have no new major injury worries ahead of the game and could potentially welcome back Lee Frecklington from injury. It is unlikely the midfielder will return to action though and will almost certainly start on the bench if selected.

After keeping their second clean sheet in three games you can almost guarantee that Marriott, Ridley, Green, Beevers and Brown will form the back 5. N'Guessan could push for a start following his goal against Dagenham but will probably start on the bench following a long injury. Dodds, Hand, Forrester and Kerr will more than likely form the midfield with Wright and John-Lewis up front.

The obvious threat from Mansfield will be Michael Boulding. To give you an indication of his importance to Mansfield you need to look at what Mansfield's results would be if he hadn't scored. They would lose 6 points and would also have gone out to Harrogate in the FA Cup. Infact, when Boulding's played he has scored in every game that Mansfield have won.

Mansfield are a team that have been on the slide in recent years. The Stags had a seeming perfectly good goal disallowed against Huddersfield in the 2003/4 season before eventually losing (something that happened to the Imps 12 months later) and they have been finish lower in each corresponding season since.

Mansfield's recent away form has picked up as they have won their last two matches on the road, although neither Brighton or Chester are hardly the most difficult places to go and get points.

At the weekend Mansfield put in a respectable performance against Middlesbrough in the FA Cup, eventually losing out 2-0. The team that started that game was Muggleton, Martin, Jelleyman, Buxton, Mullins, Brown, Dawson, D'Laryea, Bell, Hamshaw and Boulding.