Lincoln City captain Tendayi Darikwa has declared he wanted to play instead of sitting out for two weeks while the international fixtures went ahead.
City have gone 22 games unbeaten in League One, and had played five times in 14 days going into the recent break. While a handful of international Imps jetted off around the world for various matches, the rest of the squad have had time to recover and recouperate ready for a potential promotion run-in.
One of those players, Darikwa, has been in brilliant form. Last season’s Player of the Season has not dropped his levels, and he looks as fit and hungry now as he ever did playing top-flight football for Burnley.
He contests every ball, and clearly has a huge hunger for the game, something that came through in his pre-match interview ahead of the weekend’s fixtures. With a break in the bag, he admitted he wanted to play, rather than rest.
When asked by Rob Makepeace about whether the break was welcomed, he said:
“I wanted to play,” with a wry chuckle. “No, look, I think certainly from a physical point of view, probably much needed, but I think when you’re winning games, any footballer will tell you that they want to get out there., whether that’s a Saturday, Tuesday, etc.
“Look, we had a bit of time to put in some more training sessions because you don’t get to train as much when you’re playing every three days.
“We’ve worked on a couple things and hopefully we can we can show it on Friday.”
When asked about the Easter weekend being like Christmas, another period with games coming thick and fast, Tendayi stressed again how the team just want to play.
“It’s tough,” he said. “Look, you want to play games as a footballer. You want to be out there and in front of sold-out stadiums, and obviously, it would be another sellout on Friday.
“Training becomes a bit of a grind sometimes, especially when you’re in good form. You want to continue playing and winning football matches. So, as I said, hopefully we can do that over this period.”
A win against Wimbledon will ensure we can only be caught on goal difference, and four points from the weekend would ensure a return to the Championship for the first time since 1961, and a first-ever promotion from third tier to second under the current four division structure.
They’re the sort of games I think we’d all want to play in!
Comments Welcome!