Exeter City ready for Sky TV clash against in-form Lincoln City

DESPITE his strong opinion that Exeter City’s fixture with Lincoln City should be postponed this afternoon, manager Gary Caldwell insists his Grecians will be ready and up for the fight when the Imps roll into town for a televised League One encounter.

City are without three key players for the match – Josh Magennis, Ilmari Niskanen and Kamari Doyle, who have all been called up for international duty this week. Usually, meeting the three player threshold would lead to the match being postponed, but as Doyle was only called up on Monday, from a stand-by list, it meant City were denied the opportunity to postpone the game with the deadline for such requests last Sunday night.

Caldwell has made plenty of valid points on why he thinks there should be a break for all leagues, not just the Premier League and Championship, as more and more players in League One are being summoned for international duty. But until there are changes, and for this weekend at least, City have to suck it up and get on with the task in hand.

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Asked what happens next, after a week of strong opinion, Caldwell said: “Win on Saturday with the squad we have and move on.”

He added: “I don’t want this to kind of overshadow the game. I don’t want this to overshadow the quality of squad we have at this football club at this time.

“When I believe something is wrong, then I think, as a club, we have to say that and we have to stand up for that, but we - and I mean the players and the staff - are fully focused on a game of football.

“We have prepared as we always prepare and we will be ready at 12.30 players, staff and supporters for a massive game of football and that could potentially put us in the top six of this league.

“It’s a huge occasion, it’s live on Sky and we need as many supporters there as we can to help us get that victory.”

It does seem an injustice on City that they are taking on one of the most in-form teams in the league over the past 12 months without key personnel and to rub salt into that particular wound, Lincoln have retained their international players who were either not called up, or without a fixture this weekend.

“It will be a really tough game,” Caldwell said. “Whenever we’ve played them, they’re been very well organised, they have a fantastic manager and any time I’m at a game in the Football League, which isn’t often because of where we are in Devon, but I’ve been to games recently, he’s always there, and that shows his professionalism and the detail that they go into.

“They’ll be hard to break down, they’re a counter-attack team and they cause you a lot of problems.

“The back end of last season and the start of this season, they’ve been one of the best teams at this level, so we know how difficult a game it’s going to be and we need to be ready. But I think we’re a team, at this moment in time, that’s in good form as well. We are confident, we know how to win football matches and it’s going to be a really, really big game.”

Other than the three internationals and long-term injury victims Pat Jones, Johnly Yfeko and Yanic Wildschut, City are in good health, barring Mustapha Carayol, who is touch and go after picking up an injury in training last week. Kevin McDonald, who returned to the club this week on a short-term deal, is in contention, but Caldwell is unsure if he is quite at the level to be considered.

“He’s been training with us for a long time so, physically, he’s in a good place, but match minutes is something he’s not had a lot of recently,” Caldwell said. “We’ll look at the Premier League Cup to potentially get him match minutes and potentially even the EFL Trophy, but Saturday probably comes a little bit too soon.

“We’ll see how he is once we get him in games and he might show he’s really good, but I think it would be a big ask to throw him in at the moment. But like I said, he’s training well, physically in a great place, a brilliant moment and a brilliant character with great experience to help the group in what we’re doing.”