Not The Top 20 dropped their revised Championship relegation podcast today, and host George Elek had a huge Lincoln City call to make.
NTT20 is one of my favourite podcasts and has been for many years. You can blame them for my love of xG, and we were even lucky enough to have Ali Maxwell on the podcast earlier this year.
In their latest episode, they talk about relegation favourites in the Championship, and who deserves to be mentioned after eight games of the season. I listened for two reasons: I always listen, but also I wanted to see how late the Imps featured. Would we be first or second? No.
Fifth or sixth? No. In fact, we had to wait 30 minutes before we got mentioned, and even then, George admitted we were only mentioned because we’re assumed favourites for the drop.
“I think if Lincoln City weren’t called Lincoln City, we probably wouldn’t be talking about them, basically,” he said, at the end of my 5km run, meaning I had to do a little unplanned loop of the yard. That’s how late we were mentioned.
“They’re only in this conversation because we think of them as being one of the favourites to go down,” continued George, unawares of my running dilemma.
“They sit in 12th. They’ve won three games of their eight. Their underlying numbers are good. They’re defensively good. They’ve won two of their last three games, against Preston and Bristol City away from home.”
He did admit there might be concerns about our squad depth, but given we’re 24th in the budget table, we can probably forgive that, as the same assessment was made about Watford and Preston. Even with that minor concern, George said he would be ‘amazed’ if we go down.
“There might be some concerns about squad depth, possibly, but I’d be amazed, given what we’ve seen in their first eight games. Unlike Charlton, where there were big red flags in the numbers and everything else, with Lincoln City they just look rock solid.
“So I’d be really surprised if they went down.”
The whole show is worth a listen, with some cracking insight into some of the other teams in the division. I listened on Spotify, but you can find it on YouTube as well.
Do be aware that if you’re going to listen on a 5km run, you’ll need to be running over 30 minutes, so maybe tag an extra kilometre or two on, depending on your fitness level!
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