Shrewsbury Town come to Sincil Bank tomorrow night in the first evening home game at the Bank since October.
With eight games unbeaten behind us, and four wins from our last five fixtures, confidence is high at the club right now. The Shrews won this weekend to give themselves some breathing space at the bottom, but as the league’s lowest scorers take on one of the tightest defences, the first goal will be crucial.
If we’re to get it, we may need the services of one of our injured strikers. Freddie Draper isn’t expected back, but Ben House is. He missed out with a cold this weekend, but he’s now back in training.
“Ben’s better over the last couple of days,” said Michael in the pre-match press conference. “I think it was one of those 48-hour flus that just knocks you out. He is returning on the grass with us today. Then we’ll just see how he gets through that, really.”
Ben returned as the Imps beat Burton 1-0, which sparked a run of 13 points from a possible 15. That’s hauled us closer to the top six, and whilst the gap is currently nine points, with the right set of results, it could be three this time next week.
However, Michael was keen to play down expectations, but crucially without putting paid to them altogether.
“I think it’s nice that the fans are getting behind the team and can see that, and it’s brilliant that the lads have done well in the last few games to give the fans something. But, I think we have to be realistic. We have to take game by game. We’re still a way off that.
” I said at the start of this month, let’s see where we are at the end of the month. We’re not at the end of the month yet. And I think the next couple of games are big for us.”
These are two huge games. On Tuesday night, not only are Oxford not in action, but Orient play Blackpool, meaning we can gain ground on two (or maybe three) of the four teams directly above us. On Saturday, we can gain ground on the other, Stevenage, who visit Sincil Bank, whilst Oxford have a tough encounter away at the league leaders.
One thing is for certain – whatever we think about our chances right now, come next Monday, we’ll have a much clearer picture. However, before that, an encounter with a Shrewsbury side we always seem to be dueling with. In our last six encounters, we’ve won the last two; they won the two prior to that, and the two before that were draws.
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