When people talk about Lincoln City’s success this season, one of the first things that gets thrown into the conversation is luck.
It is an easy label to apply. When you are top of the table, when results keep coming, there is always a suggestion that things are falling for you, that the margins are going your way. Equally, when teams struggle, the same moments are framed in the opposite direction, as though fortune has deserted them.
That naturally raises the question, how much of Lincoln City’s campaign has actually been shaped by luck, and how much of it is something else entirely? Because if you are trying to build a blueprint, if you are trying to understand how a season like this comes together, then luck is not something you can really plan for. It cannot be coached, recruited, or embedded into a system. It either happens or it does not.
Fixture Luck
On the surface, there are moments you could point to. Take the games against Plymouth Argyle, for instance, where Lorent Tolaj missed both fixtures. A striker who has scored 20-odd goals in all competitions this season, a real handful. So straight away, you look at that and think, we’ve played Plymouth without Tolaj, that’s a slice of luck.
You can say the same about Cardiff. Yusuf Salech not being available when we went there. They had loads of the ball, dominated possession at times, but they couldn’t call on their million-pound striker, or whatever he cost. So again, you can frame that as luck.
Then you look at timing of fixtures. We played Peterborough United early in the season, before Darren Ferguson had left, when they perhaps weren’t at their strongest. We played Reading before they really got going in the transfer market, before the recruitment kicked in properly. Huddersfield Town, we caught them before they were able to add in the window.
You can stack those examples up quite easily and say, yes, Lincoln have been fortunate. But then you flip it, and there’s a counter for every single one.
We played Leyton Orient, and Dom Ballard was fit, scored against us, and I’m sure he’s missed games this season. Every team has. Huddersfield, we faced them when Leo Castledine was still there, not after he’d moved on. So again, it cuts both ways.
Transfer window timing works both ways as well. It’s all well and good saying we played Reading when they were weaker, but they played us after Jovon Makama had just left, before Adam Reach came in, before Ivan Varfolomeev came in. So who was better off at that point? It probably evens itself out.
Peterborough is another good example. Yes, we played them at a decent time early in the season, but when we faced them again in January they were flying. Proper run of form, right in the mix for the play-offs at that point. That cancels out the idea that we only ever caught them at the right time.
Blackpool, we played them twice under Ian Evatt, once when they had that new manager bounce, once later in the season. We didn’t catch them when they were struggling under Steve Bruce. Wycombe, same again, we didn’t face them when they were really struggling under Mike Dodds, we only played them after the change when Michael Duff had come in.
So when people say luck, it becomes really subjective. You can pick moments and say, that fell for Lincoln. But you’re ignoring the ones that didn’t.
It’s like flipping a coin ten times and only talking about the five times it lands on heads. You’re just choosing the outcome that suits the argument you want to make.
Would I say it’s slightly lucky that Tolaj missed both games against Plymouth? Yes, probably. That’s a fair one. But beyond that, it’s very easy to build a case that everything has evened itself out across the season.
Injuries
Where it gets more interesting, and where I think the whole luck argument starts to fall apart a bit, is when you move away from those isolated moments and look at injuries, because that’s the one people keep coming back to. We’ve been lucky with injuries, apparently. I don’t really buy that.
Jack Moylan, Team of the Season player, missed a chunk from August through to October. That’s not lucky. James Collins, given the number nine shirt after finishing last season strongly, does his ACL and is gone for the campaign in December. That’s your starting striker, gone. Again, not lucky. Freddie Draper comes in, does well, then gets injured himself against Northampton and is ruled out for the rest of the season. So where’s the luck there?
What’s actually happened is we haven’t avoided injuries, we’ve dealt with them. Collins goes out, Draper comes in. Draper goes out, Rob Street comes in. Then behind that, you’ve got Alfie Lloyd, Ryan Oné, Justin Obikwu, Frankie Okoronkwo, all filling gaps at different points. That’s not fortune, that’s having options.
You can point at the spine and say Conor McGrandles, Tom Hamer, Tendayi Darikwa and Sonny Bradley have played plenty of football together, but loads of teams have had a core group hitting 40 games. The difference for us is that when we’ve lost players, we’ve not fallen apart. Under Mark Kennedy in 2022/23, hardly anyone got beyond 30-odd appearances, and that highlighted how thin we were. This time, it hasn’t.
Even defensively, we’ve had issues. Adam Jackson missed a big chunk; Oscar Thorn was just starting to get minutes before his injury. They might not have been first names on the teamsheet, but they were involved, they were part of the group. It’s not like we’ve sailed through untouched.
So I don’t think we’ve been lucky with injuries. I think we’ve been prepared for them. That’s a big difference.
Decisions
Refereeing is the other big one. The idea that teams at the top get all the decisions. It gets rolled out every season. And again, if you want to find examples, you can. But you can just as easily find the opposite.
George Wickens against Luton, people point at that and say we’ve had one. Fine. But what about Mansfield at home, when Sonny Bradley is sent off and it never looks a red? We drop points there. That doesn’t fit the narrative, so it gets forgotten.
Wigan at home, Rob Street goes for a high boot, and it is 10 v 10, when we probably could have had an advantage, as Street’s boot wasn’t any more dangerous than six or seven we’ve seen since. Huddersfield again, clear handball on the line, nothing given. If that’s a penalty, we probably win the game. Are those the decisions you get when you’re top? Because we didn’t get them.
That’s the thing, over a season, they level out. Some go for you, some don’t. Some matter, some don’t. If you’re winning games, you don’t obsess over them. If you’re losing, they become excuses.
Even with red cards, people pick and choose. Jack Vale gets sent off, some will argue it’s harsh, but in the modern game, studs up like that, you’re in trouble. We’ve had similar go against us in previous seasons against Cambridge for Joe Gardner and Ellis Chapman. That’s not about league position, that’s about interpretation.
So when you step back and look at everything, not just one moment here or there, it’s very hard to make a serious case that luck has driven this. Over 45 games, with the points total we’ve got, with the run we’ve put together, that doesn’t happen because things fall your way a few times.
That’s not to say there’s been no luck at all. There never is. You’ll always get deflections, odd decisions, bits that go for you or against you. But they’re part of football, not the reason you win a title.
What we’ve done is make those moments less important. Built a squad that can cope, managed players properly, rotated when needed, kept standards high. So when something does go against you, it doesn’t derail you.
There’s that line about luck favouring the people who work hardest. It fits here. Not because we’ve relied on luck, but because we’ve put ourselves in positions where, when those moments come, we’re ready for them.
So yes, there’s been luck, same as there is for everyone. But to say it’s a key part of why we’re where we are ignores everything else. This has been built. And that’s why, when you look at it properly, it doesn’t feel like luck at all.
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