The Imps face the second Wanderers team in a week on Saturday, as the Chairboys visit Sincil Bank for the opening home game of the season, writes Tom Morton.
It’s less than four months since we last took on Wycombe, with a 2-0 win at Adams Park Stadium. That encounter mathematically ruled them out of contention for a playoff place (although to be honest it was only an outside shot at that point) and so fans may see this as a bit of a grudge match.
I wouldn’t describe the team we’ll see at the weekend as “much changed” but there have been some moves over the summer. The Chairboys released eleven players at the end of June including five who featured in the first team last year. That includes joint top-scorer for the club, Lewis Wing who rejected a fresh contract in favour of joining Reading.
Manager Matt Bloomfield went on record calling the churn an “evolution” but you can sense his disappointment. A couple of months later he might be a little more happy, having secured some pretty solid signings. Richard Keogh and Kane Vincent-Young joined after being released by promoted Ipswich Town. Neither could be considered a key player in Ipswich’s campaign last year but they made several appearances and were regular squad members.
They will also be pleased to have captured Luke Leahy from Shewsbury. We’ve seen Leahy several times in the last few years. First with Bristol, where he picked up a red card and just generally didn’t come over well. More recently with Salop, he’s been more effective and will be a handy defensive midfielder who has the ability to net a clutch of goals through the season.
We might also see Harry Boyes, on loan from Sheffield United, feature. He was in the starting lineup in our last encounter with Wycombe, but of course, wearing a Lincoln shirt. Boyes had a decent if brief spell with us, and we do enjoy welcoming ex-Imps back to the Bank.
The Season so far
In their first game of the season Wycombe succumbed to a 3-0 defeat at home to Exeter. Indeed they conceded the complete first goal of the season in the first minute (and the second, in fact, three minutes later). The lackluster performance was compounded five minutes after that when goalkeeper Max Styjek rashly pulled down an Exeter player in the box. Styjek made up for the error by saving the subsequent penalty, but it seems like the Chairboys never recovered from the sucker punch, seeing out the rest of the game before conceding again seven minutes from time.
Reports suggest their opening game was a very different situation to ours; Exeter are not necessarily a threatening team (solidly mid-table) and Wycombe would surely be hoping to improve on their ninth-place finish last time out. From Bloomfields post-match comments it certainly felt like a reset of expectations.
The Chairboys did follow up with a solid Mid-Week win against MK Dons, and so in some respects have mirrored our own start to the season. That said it does feel as if Saturday’s game puts a bit of pressure on Bloomfield. Wycombe is in his blood having spent nearly two decades with the club as a player before replacing long-time manager Gareth Ainsworth in February 2023. With Ainsworth moving on this is genuinely a new era for the club and fans and owners will certainly be expecting positive results from the Bloomfield in the coming season.
Head to Head
April’s game was our first win against the Chairboys since a 2009 league two encounter. In between we’ve mostly seen out draws. That’s a better record than our other main run of games against the club; between 1994 and 2005 we lost 6-straight games across several seasons. It’s not a great record, to be honest, and with seven wins to us and eleven to them across our history, we have some catching up to do.
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