Lincoln City have stayed down in Bristol as they await the second game in four days in the south west against Exeter City.
After going for a meal on Saturday evening as a group, it is back to the grindstone, hunting three points on a trip to mid-table Exeter City. Under new management, they’ll be hoping to do the double over us, while we’re after our first win at St James Park since August 2018.
On Saturday against Cardiff City, Jack Moylan missed out due to a dead leg, and in his pre-match press conference, Michael Skubala outlined where the Irish star is in relation to a return to the side.
“Yeah, Jack’s been exceptional over the last few games,” he said. “Everybody knows that. Everybody can see that. It’s always a big decision when you get his dead leg not to play him, but he was there just in case we thought we needed to chase the game, a player that can open the game up if we weren’t in a good spot.
“The reality is you have to make big decisions because a couple of extra days now really freshens Jack up and probably moves his injury, or any risk of getting an even worse dead leg if he got hit on it again.”
He was stripped down and ready to come on in the last minute of injury time, but the game ended before he entered the fray, meaning he should be fit and raring to go for the challenge Exeter City pose.
“He’s fresh. He’s good to go, which is great because he’s had another few days of recovery, which actually means a lot for that type of injury. So yeah, good not to get him on the pitch if you know what I mean.
“That means we can hopefully have him for the run-in for the rest of the season.”
At present, there are no further injury worries, and Michael confirmed that the whole squad travelled down, not just the 18 in the playing party. That means we could see changes on the bench as the likes of Kamil Conteh and Erik Ring have missed out in recent matches.
“We’ve brought everybody with us though. It’s important. We’re going to train today. People would have seen the players not in the squad that are training as well. Everybody that’s fit is here with us in Cardiff, so if we have any illness or injuries we can tweak things around.
“It also gives me the options to change things if we want, so it’s not just the 18 here, you’ve got the extra squad players here as well trying to get into the squad.”
It does feel unlikely we’ll see significant changes, but given the switch we made at Cardiff, with Ryley Towler coming in and Adam Reach starting further forward, changes to the XI could be expected. I wonder if perhaps Moylan will come back into the side on the left, with Reach dropping back into the left-back role, as we approach the game a little more front-footed than we did in Cardiff.
The beauty is we have so many options, it isn’t clear cut who will play. What we do know is Freddie Draper, Adam Jackson, James Collins and Oscar Thorn are unlikely to feature.
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