League One Play Off Second Leg Preview: Sunderland v Lincoln City

Sunderland will welcome Lincoln in the second leg of the play-offs with the Imps holding a 2-0 lead from the first leg.

First Leg Recap:

Lincoln won the first leg 2-0. The result came courtesy of goals from Tom Hopper and Brennan Johnson.

Team News

Sunderland are without Dion Sanderson, Conor McLaughlin, Arbenit Xhemajli and Jordan Willis. Denver Hume picked up an injury in the first leg and will miss the game.

Lincoln are without Adam Jackson, while Joe Walsh is a doubt. Goalkeeper Alex Palmer has recovered from his injury so will replace emergency loan goalkeeper Josef Bursik who returns to Stoke City.

The Manager’s Views

Sunderland Head Coach Lee Johnson said the players need to be brave. He told the club’s website “We have to have that attitude to score goals, we know the task. We have to deliver crosses and through-balls, we have to be brave with our set-plays and mindset to get on the end of things.”

Lincoln manager Michael Appleton says the mentality will be to win the second leg. Appleton told Lincolnshire Live “We’ll go there and try and win the game. If we go there and try and get a draw, we’ll end up doing what we did for 20 minutes after we took the lead, defending on the edge of our box and allowing them to put balls in the box.”

Final Thoughts

Sunderland will be looking for an early goal to put pressure on Lincoln. As Appleton said, Lincoln are going to try and win the game, which could create a fairly open game.