4th - Lincoln

The keyest of key signings if keyest is indeed a word was David Graham. A fantastic striker in his day, and at 29 we reckoned it would be someone like Peter Jackson who got the best out of Graham. We were wrong with a capital WR, as Graham camped himself upon the footballing scrapheap and declared that he shall not be moved. Now playing for Sheffield FC in the Northern Premier League.

Even the signing of Geoff Horsfield did little to lift the Imps above the also rans

Peter Jackson has always been a wily old fox of a manager, though its fair to say that he's not really got to grips with the job at Lincoln so far. Of course, a lot of that may well have come down to his health issues which distracted him for a significant amount of time, but his Lincoln sides have certainly under achieved up until this point, and whilst he's rightly been given time to get the job right, he may face a few questions this season if it comes out to be another season spent languishing around 13th place in the division, without any real prospect of making the Play Offs.

We don't think he's for the sack, and he's probably more likely to get this Lincoln side kick started into gear at long last but he's fast approaching his third anniversary of the job and as we all know, managers don't often get longer than that without showing some sort of sign of progress. Recently a Lincoln website offered a Peter Jackson Keep the Faith article, which is usually the online equivalent of a Chairman backing the manager. Fine for Jackson now but you get the feeling its time to start doing something soon.

This could have been a season where things went a bit sour for Jackson. Indeed, a few weeks ago we were considering sticking down for a very lowly position. After all, you're talking about a team who finished in the bottom half of the division, albeit only just, and have lost a couple of key players from last season's squad.

The loss of Lee Frecklington will be a blow. Massive things were expected of Frecklington a couple of years ago, and he arguably stayed with the Imps a year or two more than he should have done in terms of his career. He joined Peterboro on loan in February before making that move permanent in the Summer.

The biggest blow will be losing Dany N'Guessan. Dale fans will remember him from his performance at Spotland earlier in the year when in a fifteen minute spell from, he turned the whole complexion of the game and was untouchable. By the time we recovered, the game was already lost.

His departure to Leicester will rob Lincoln of something that little bit special, that ability to produce that bit of magic and to turn a game their way. Consistency might not always have been there, but you're never out of a game with someone like him around. Very difficult to replace, as there's not many like him around.

Looking at the bigger picture, Lincoln have lost five out of their top seven scorers last season, with their top remaining scorer chipping in with four goals last time out. Goalscoring is an issue but the new recruits offer great encouragement for the Imps supporters, and there's more than a Dale influence about who they've drafted in a bid to get scoring.

Paul Connor is probably the first name that screams out. Connor's time at Spotland is warmly remembered and rightly so. That first season he spent at the club, he showed magnificent form, and whilst that was only a short spell, I can't recall a Dale striker to do as well in such a short space of time, where it appeared he could score from anywhere.

Unfortunately, after the following season's injury, he was never quite the same player again, and whilst we still had the brief reminders such as the goal against Coventry in the FA Cup, the lasting memory will be a sheepish looking Connor slumped on his knees looking towards the referee after ending up on the floor and giving a free kick away, feeling very hard done to.

Connor's spent the last few years playing in a higher division, albeit predominantly as a squad player. He's scored only fourteen goals over the past three seasons, but he's still only thirty and the drop down a division will no doubt work to his advantage.

The other one with a Dale history is Rene Howe having spent five months on loan at Spotland during the Wembley Play Off season. Howe's time with Dale is often overlooked for any other player who came in and scored nine goals and set up seven others would no doubt be looked upon more fondly.

Howe showed again last season that he's more than capable of scoring goals in this divsion with a loan spell at Morecambe, and whilst three years on, he might not be capable of remembering that he's technically a Peterborough player, he's young, strong and mobile enough to cause any team a problem.

The Imps are also boosted by the return of Richard Butcher. Whilst avoiding all obvious Eastenders references, Butcher seems to be a peculiar player who only does well when playing for Lincoln. He was highly thought of at Sincil Bank in the past and I see no reason why that won't help him recapture past form.

Another potential good signing is Jamie Clarke. Not the Clarke that played for us a few years back, but ex Blackburn striker. He had a couple of loan spells in League Two last year scoring goals. He's far from the finished article by a long way but seven goals last season in twenty odd appearances suggests that he'll be a decent addition to the squad and someone worth keeping an eye on over the next season or two.

So looking overall at Lincoln's squad, I think it's fair to say that Jackson has repaired the damage of the departures, and in doing so has gone with younger, hungrier players than he did a year ago to solve that goalscoring issue, and if they can get off to a better start than they did last season (and to be fair, they can hardly do worse), then they've got a real chance of getting some momentum going.

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