Fresh Details Emerge In Imps Player Hunt: What Profile of Player Are We After?

January 13, 2025 Gary Headlines, Lincoln City 0

Credit Graham Burrell

Fresh details have emerged in the Imps hunt for reinforcements, and it makes interesting reading.

There’s no doubt we need something. There’s the crux of a decent side here right now, but it’s lacking in certain areas. Is that experience and know-how? Some might say not, but it seems Michael Skubala is targeting just that in the latest transfer window.

The injury to Tyler Walker (the third one) has scuppered our plans. It seems as though the idea was to get our young players around Tyler, as Michael has confirmed to BBC Radio Lincolnshire. This suggests that Walker was due to play a senior role over the next few months, but that’s now changed, and so have our plans to bring in a striker.

Credit Graham Burrell

Stoke have recently recalled Nathan Lowe and he’s one name mentioned, but he’s 19, and that is another factor in who we bring in: age. Michael has confirmed that it’s unlikely we’ll be bringing young lads in, as that’s not what we need at the moment. With JJ McKiernan heading out on loan, and our strike force comprising of three young players in Draper, Cadamarteir and Makama, we do seem to be looking for a bit of experience. That’s going to be met with a huge sigh of relief, because we almost certainly need someone with experience up top.

I’ve said before we need a Lee Thorpe-style player, someone who’ll knock defenders about, win a few cheap free kicks and maybe help give those younger players the benefit of his experience. Obviously not Thorpe, he’s retired, but the way we play we need to be kncoking defenders about, and perhaps we’ve been a bit light in that area in the past. Is that player available? Well, probably not to buy.

However, buying isn’t what we want to do – Michael has also confirmed we’re likely to be looking at the loan market. That makes sense – we don’t want to make a knee-jerk decision on a player and end up with a Jayden Stockley / Jack Marriott size wage commitment like Fleetwood did a year or two ago. Making a move for a loan player is a temporary fix, but if they’re experienced, then they’re likely to drop straight in. John Marquis had an immediate impact, and while he tailed off, he was what we needed at the moment in time.

I’m focused on the striker, but does that mean a striker out-of-favour at a Championship side? While I’m obviously not suggesting this as it’s unrealistic, someone like Patrick Bamford – experienced, out of favour at his parent club, not played many games but having appeared from the bench a few times? I don’t think we’ll go for Bamford, but there’s a few like him about. Niall Ennis is another at Stoke, and there’s bound to be plenty more. Is that the sort of player (I stress, not those two) we’re going to be looking at? Look at the impact Jordan Rhodes had at Blackpool last season.

There’s no doubt the next couple of weeks are going to be very interesting indeed.