Take a flashback to about 5pm on Saturday 28th October 2006 and the Imps had just gone top of the table. That was the last time a lot of the City fans were proud to say that this group of players represented Lincoln City Football Club. Since then effortless and passionless performances have seen us embarrased in the Playoffs, get mauled on a regular basis and seen the fans stoop as low as using alphabetical order in order to show that we weren't bottom of the club.

Since the aforementioned date the Imps have played 69 League games, 2 Playoff games, 3 FA Cup games, a League cup game and one in the JP Trophy. Our record in that time is 23 wins, 13 draws and 40 defeats. Infact, in those 76 games we've conceded three or more goals on a total of 18 times. If you think that is acceptable then you are sadly mistaken.

It says it all about the mentality of this team, and I use the word "team" very loosely when I refer to the players at this club, when they showed no passion under Schofield, were suddenly really up for games under Jackson but have now reverted to not even looking concerned when we go 1-0 down. In other words, this group of players gives the impression that if they don't like the manager then they're not prepared to put in effort. What a brilliant effort for so called professionals.

These players effectively have a part time job. They turn up every weekend morning for a few hours, a few hours every Saturday and the occasional bit of overtime on a Tuesday night. Effectively for a job where they only "work" about 20 hours a week, they earn more money in a week than most fans earn in a month. Yet they turn up every shift and most don't appear to put the effort in.

The attitude of some players amazes me. The 5-2 defeat at Barnet saw a lot of players representing the Imps knowing that their contract is up in a few months, not that you'd have guessed it. All week long you'll get quotes in the Echo saying "I want to play for this club next season" and yet when it comes the matches, they act like they couldn't really give a toss if they are offered a new contract.

They really don't realise how lucky they are. I could go around Sincil Bank on Monday and find any 16 fans that would be prepared to play professional football for not even half of what the actual players earn a week. Those 16 would put in more passion as a collective than the current set do. The only player who constantly shows passion is Scott Kerr, the rest might as well just shrug their shoulders and say "And just think, I'm getting paid to play rubbish."

This set of players owes us. We put our hard earned money into this club and yet we get virtually no reward for it. 14th place is not good enough and it's only now that we see the lack of effort without Jackson, that we realise that it wasn't John Schofield or John Deehan's fault that this set of players simply aren't good enough to actually earn their money.

Quite frankly, I could count on one hand those players who actually deserve to be here next season, and when, not IF, Jackson finds players more passionate that those who will leave, then we will be much better off.

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