Michael Appleton has revealed this morning in his press conference that all three new faces should be in the squad for tomorrow’s tough trip to Gillingham.
The Imps added Max Sanders, Regan Poole and Cohen Bramall to the squad over the weekend, but none featured in the EFL Trophy quarter-final victory against Hull City on Tuesday. Despite that, all three are likely to be involved tomorrow, as Michael looks to have a deeper bench than the four that travelled across the Humber,
“They’ll be in the squad for tomorrow’s game,” said this Imps boss in the pre-match press conference. “They’ve been playing reasonably regularly at their clubs so they won’t be that far away in terms of match fitness. Having said that, having received some of the stats from the clubs, the intensity in terms of their training loads are not quite where we are. They’ll have to get up to speed from that point of view because of the demands that will be expected of them. It might be a bit of a shock to them but I’m sure there’ll pick that up pretty quickly.”
I recently rubbished Ben’s comments that our fitness was likely to be any better than that of other clubs, but it does seem the workload imposed on the players at the EPC is more than that other teams achieve.
“We get their load and their data from their training and we found that quite a few (new faces) have been below what we’d normally do on a week-to-week basis. It’s just a matter of picking that up and hopefully, they can deal with that. Part of the recruitment process is recognising players who we will play at a tempo that will suit us.”

The Imps go into the Gillingham game having suffered a first league defeat of 2021 last weekend, but lifted the spirits by beating Hull City on a woeful pitch on Tuesday night. A tough game saw the Imps take an early lead, only to be pegged back in the second half. However, putting the weekend’s penalty disappointment behind us, we emerged victorious 4-3 after six kicks each.
The game was characterised by us having just four subs, one of which was keeper Sam Long, whilst Hull had a full compliment. Speaking after the game, Michael confirmed two of the three new signings would be available for selection in the semi-final, which has yet to be drawn.
“I think we possibly might have Cohen Bramall available, as well as Max Sanders. We should be a little bit strong and have a stronger bench.”
Michael has been in the final twice before, coming out on the wrong side of the result both times. His former side, Oxford, are also still in the competition, alongside beaten 2019 finalists Sunderland and 1990 winners Tranmere.
“You have to be prepared to beat every team that is in the competition to get to the final, then try to win it,” Michael added. “We’re thankful we’re in the semi-final, but we’ll start worrying about that after we’ve dealt with a couple of games beforehand. I would love personally the opportunity to go back there because I’ve got to two finals in this competition and it would be great to get to a third and try to win one.”
Michael finished by suggesting despite his record in the finals, he is still in esteemed company.
“I’ve had a little bit of stick for the two finals we lost in terms of now being on the right side of the result, but I do come back with Jurgen Klopp lost five finals before he won one, so I’m in good company.”
City’s game tomorrow at Priestfield kicks off at 6 pm, live on Sky Sports, with the EFL Trophy draw taking place immediately after the game.
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