Lincoln City plan to spike Peterborough United’s heavy artillery

Only Manchester City in the top four divisions of English football have scored more goals than Posh this season. Posh have 26 and Mo Eisa, who has missed out to Bristol Rovers’ striker Jonson Clarke-Harris for the September player-of-the-month prize in League One, Ivan Toney and Marcus Maddison have scored 24 of them.

They are an obvious problem for all opponents in the third tier and Lincoln’s chances have not been helped by the likely absence of former Posh defender Michael Bostwick who has a calf injury.

Appleton said: “They’re very dangerous. A lot of League One managers up and down the country would love to have that type of artillery.

“But we’ve got some dangerous players ourselves. The key for us – and for many teams who come up against Peterborough – is to try and take that threat away and try to nullify the amount of balls that get played into those three in dangerous positions.

“As pleased as I’ve been with us in possession and the attacking threat we’ve posed, I’ve been just as pleased with how we’ve looked out of possession,” he said.

“We’ve tried to be hard to beat. Apart from the poor start we made against Blackpool, the shape has been very good.

“Bostwick is struggling a bit. It’s clearly frustrating for him because he’s the type of player who wants to be out there training and playing. It’ll need a bit of managing over the next week or two.”

Lincoln lost their first game under Appleton 2-1 at Blackpool, but claimed an impressive 2-0 win over Sunderland at Sincil Bank last weekend when top scorer Tyler Walker scored both goals.

The Imps are expected to be supported by close to 3,000 fans tomorrow. If they win they will move above Posh.