Fleetwood Town face Lincoln City on Saturday 14 August at the LNER Stadium in a Sky Bet League One fixture, and we have all you need to know ahead of the 3pm kick-off in our match preview.
Fixture: Lincoln City v Fleetwood Town
Competition: Sky Bet League One
Date: Saturday 14 August 2021
Kick-off: 15:00
Venue: LNER Stadium, Queen Street, Lincoln, LN5 8LD
FLEETWOOD TOWN
The Cods are in search of their first three points of the season, with their next opponents being Michael Appleton’s Lincoln City on Saturday.
In their last outing, Fleetwood fell to a 2-0 defeat to a strong Sky Bet Championship side in Stoke City meaning the side were knocked out of the Carabao Cup in the opening round. On a tough night in Staffordshire, Town were trying to break through the host’s backline, which featured former-cod Harry Souttar, but it was the opposition who managed to find the back of the net on two occasions through Sam Surridge and Souttar.
Before that, Simon Grayson’s side were unlucky to lose on the opening day of the league season, after dominating the play for most of the game against Portsmouth at Highbury. The Cods started out the game strong creating multiple gilt-edged chances, forcing saved out of the Portsmouth goalkeeper but it wasn’t meant to be as the only goal of the game came from a driven shot by Lee Brown.
LINCOLN CITY
Lincoln, after their play-off campaign last season, are yet to see a win this campaign after drawing against Gillingham in the league and losing on penalties to Shrewsbury Town in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday.
In the cup defeat to the Shrews, it was an action-packed game that finished 2-2 during normal time on the night. Tom Hopper and Ed Bishop scored two quickfire goals to give The Imps the advantage, but a Daniel Udoh brace late on meant the tie would go to a shootout, which finished 4-2 in favour of the side from Montgomery Waters Meadow.
In the game before, Appleton’s side travelled to Priestfield Stadium to face Gillingham and walked away with a point on the day. Tayo Edun opened the scoring after just four minutes, shocking the stadium, but it was a Danny Lloyd goal that cancelled that out just before the half-time break.
PRE-MATCH QUOTES: SIMON GRAYSON
Head Coach Simon Grayson spoke to the media ahead of Fleetwood Town’s Sky Bet League One fixture against Lincoln City at Sincil Bank on Saturday afternoon. Here is what the gaffer had to say in his interview:
“It will be a tough game for us. They did ever-so-well last year and got to the play-off final, just missing out on promotion. Michael [Appleton] has done well at the club, even with a change of personnel as some of their star loan players have now left, and [Jorge] Grant has left as well, but they have replaced them with good players.
“I think the play-offs from last season are a thing from the past now as they have quite a few new players in the group now – I’m sure they will be using the motivation of losing a play-off final for the whole of the season, not just the first few games.
“You are heading to their place and it’s the club’s first home game of the season so it will be quite a vocal crowd. We’ve got to withstand any pressure we get from them early on and have to make sure we implement what we want to do in the game so we can try to replicate the result and performance we got when we went down there last campaign."
MATCH OFFICIALS
James Oldham will be the man in the middle for Town’s trip to Lincoln, with Graeme Fyvie and Ivan Stankovic running the wings, and Christopher Ward is the Fourth Official.
Oldham took charge of Stevenage vs Barrow on the opening day of the season, and he was not scared to get his cards out as he branded 10 yellow cards in the first 90 minutes of the season.
He also showed another three yellow cards in the Carabao Cup fixture between Sheffield United and Carlisle United, both of these games ended 1-0 to the home team.
GET YOUR ONWARD CARD TODAY!
The best way to watch Fleetwood Town this year is by purchasing the Onward Card. For adults, you will pay as little as £170 for 23 Sky Bet League One matches, with many benefits included in the deal. Click HERE for more details.