Lincoln City head coach Michael Skubala has refused to rule out a late push for the play-offs for his side.
The Imps are currently unbeaten in six, having faced Peterborough and Derby in that time. They’ve won two of the last three matches and have Exeter, Shrewsbury and Port Vale before the end of the month.
That run has seen them cement their place in the middle of the table, 11th, with 13 points the gap between them and Oxford in sixth place. It looks to be very much a case of ‘not going down, not going up’ for the Imps, but former Leeds United Under 21 boss Skubala refused to rule out a late push.
“I think first of all we need to keep pushing,” he said when BBC Radio Lincolnshire’s Michael Hortin suggested the top six was out of reach. “You never know what’s going to go on in the next sort of few weeks. I think get to the end of February and see where we are.”
“We need to go out with the same mentality every game to try and go and win it. We need to do that against a very good side (Exeter City) who, up until Tuesday, are on brilliant form and turned around a lot of wins. You just see how well they’ve climbed the table from a few wins.”
Also referring to Cheltenham, another team who have turned their form around, Skubala suggested his side would keep looking up and seek to emulate teams coming into form.
“If they can go on the run, why can’t we go on a run and try and get some wins and see where we are at the end of February? I think then pictures become clearer for where we’re probably settling.”
The Imps are no strangers to the play-offs, having made the League Two play-offs five years in a row between 2003 and 2007, and in 2018, losing to Saturday’s opponents Exeter City.
In 2021, they reached the League One play-off final, but were defeated by Blackpool, despite having two current Premier League players, Morgan Rogers and Brennan Johnson, in their side.
Writer’s View
Why not, right? Okay, it’s five wins between the Imps and the top six, and with just 14 games left, that’s a lot. If the Imps could average two points per game between now and the end of the season, that would give them a total of 70 points – probably not quite enough.
That said, stranger things have happened. It would have to be a massive effort, but of their remaining fixtures, only two are against teams currently in the top six.
Skubala may well dream, and if he were to see his team take nine points from the next three games, the dream might be on, but their winless run between November 28th and this month has probably meant another season in League One for them.
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