City are on their travels again tomorrow, heading to Bloomfield Road to face a Blackpool side with three wins, three draws and three defeats on home soil.
Languishing in the bottom four, they look on paper to be one of our weaker games before 2026, but in reality, that will be very different. Packed with talent, Ian Evatt is beginning to get a tune from them – they’ve only lost one of their last six at home, and recently put four past Carlisle United in the cup, and three past table-topper Cardiff City.
While their home form is improving, some of the Imps’ fanbase believes our away record is patchy, an observation made by Rob Makepeace in the pre-match press conference this week. Contrasting the home and away form, it prompted Michael to defend the Imps’ record on the road.
“Our home form has been excellent,” said Michael. “That is definite and we are a really tough place to play at home.
“Our away form has probably not been at the level we want, but it has not been as bad as people think either. It is mid-table form in terms of away results, but we want to keep picking up points.
“We need to pick up points on the road. We feel like we have got a good method at home, and how we can do it. We have got to find a way to pick up more points away from home over the second half of the season.”
Is it fair to call our away form patchy? We are tenth in terms of our away form, with three wins, two draws and four defeats. However, Bradford City, with the third best away form in the division, have also only won three matches.
It’s also worth noting that we have faced three of the four best home sides in the division (excluding ourselves in top spot). That’s Wycombe, where we lost to a last-minute goal, Bolton, where we were held to a draw because of a last-minute goal, and Bradford, who have still only lost once at home all season. We have also been to Leyton Orient and Rotherham, two more teams inside the top ten for home form.
That means that 55% of our matches have been against sides in the top nine for home form, suggesting we’ve had a tough run. Also, considering those late goals against Bolton and Wycombe, had we held out in both, our away form (on PPG) would be fifth best in the division.
Perhaps, it isn’t about improving our away from as a whole, because we’re not far from being decent on our travels, but rather controlling those final few minutes in games we’re holding. That said, we did just that against Burton Albion and Northampton.
It’s an interesting point for discussion, but it feels like perception and reality here are a little different.
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