Lincoln City will head to Premier League side Southampton on Tuesday night looking to eclipse a piece of their own personal history by reaching the quarterfinals of the league cup for the first time.
Their boss, Mark Kennedy, was clear that his team isn’t in the draw just to make up the numbers, and that the Imps are heading to Southampton with the belief that they can win the tie.
Speaking to LincSport ahead of the game, the Imps boss said: “Obviously we play Football to win. Nobody likes to lose. We’ll be going into the game and we’ll be doing our best to win.
“Whatever happens we’ll give it everything we’ve got and walk off the pitch with no regrets.”
On the last occasion the Imps’ reached the round 16 in this competition, 23,196 fans packed into Sincil Bank in 1967 to see Lincoln lose 0-3 in a fourth-round replay against Derby, which is still a record home attendance to this day.
Kennedy’s side will be hoping to fare better than their 1967/68 counterparts when they take on a Southampton side who haven’t played since November 12th, their last competitive tie being a 3-1 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield.
The new Saints boss, Nathan Jones, will take charge of his second competitive game after leaving his previous club Luton Town.
In a recent interview with the BBC, Jones said: “It will take time to play how I want but we are getting there. I hope to see a starting point tomorrow”.
Despite there being 39 places between the two teams, the Imps have already beaten the odds to get to this point in the competition, comprehensively beating Nigel Pearson’s Bristol City side in the last round.
They have also made a habit over recent years of performing well against so-called ‘bigger’ teams. But with Southampton expected to field a full-strength eleven in preparation for their return to Premier League action on Boxing Day, could this be a test too far for Kennedy’s side?