Lincoln vs Birmingham Prediction: Imps can give the Blues another tough trip

Lincoln City welcome top-of-the-table Birmingham City to the LNER Stadium on Saturday (15:00) in League 1, looking to extend their unbeaten run to seven matches. The Imps are fourth in the table and four points behind the league leaders.

The Blues tasted their first league defeat of the season at Charlton Athletic a fortnight ago, so they will be looking to bounce back in Lincolnshire. Read on for my Lincoln vs Birmingham prediction, alongside the latest match odds and team news.

Lincoln vs Birmingham Odds

Lincoln are 16/5, or a 23.8% chance, to win this fixture. Birmingham are valued at 9/10, giving them an implied probability of 52.6%. The draw can be backed at 12/5 (29.4%).

Both teams to score is on offer at 5/6 and over 2.5 goals is marketed at 1/1.

Birmingham forward Alfie May has five goals in the league so far this season, and he is 6/4 to score anytime on Saturday.

Football Odds

Team News

Lincoln have no fresh concerns heading into this clash, which will be pleasing for boss Michael Skubala.

For Birmingham, boss Chris Davies has revealed that right-back Ethan Laird isn't too far away from returning to action, having been out since the end of August. It remains to be seen if he will be included in the squad at the weekend.

Krystian Bielik, Lee Buchanan and Luke Harris are still recovering from their respective injuries. With Bielik out for a couple of weeks, Ben Davies looks to partner Christoph Klarer in defence, while Dion Sanderson will be on standby.

Birmingham will welcome back several players back from international duty in the form of Paik Seung-ho (South Korea), Willum Willumsson, Alfons Sampsted (both Iceland) and Lyndon Dykes (Scotland).

Paik returned late from international duty but is likely to return to the midfield, alongside Tomoki Iwata, who is deemed to be okay after picking up a knock against 4-0 win at Shrewsbury Town in the the Bristol Street Motors Trophy.

Attacking players Scott Wright (who scored twice and grabbed an assist) and Ayumu Yokoyama played well in that game, and both could have played their way into Davies' thinking for the starting lineup at Lincoln.

Blues' record signing Jay Stansfield went away with England Under-21s but he didn't feature because of a knock. He is expected to miss this weekend's clash with Lincoln as a result.

Ryan Allsop has been the goalkeeper for the last few games following a number of errors from Bailey Peacock-Farrell and he looks set to continue between the sticks after the latter pulled out of the Northern Ireland squad with a shoulder problem.

Draw or Birmingham and both teams to score @ 13/10

Birmingham have been tipped to run away with League 1 this season because of the resources at their disposal but they still have to go out there and battle with teams who are looking to knock them off their perch.

Charlton were able to hand them their first defeat of the season, which after nine matches, most supporters would have taken heading into the campaign. The Blues have been on a tough run of fixtures against sides who are likely to be challenging of the top end of the table and they have managed to win all but one. And to do that before hitting their peak of the season just shows their strength in depth.

This run continues at Lincoln, before they take on last year's play-off finalists Bolton Wanderers and newly-promoted Mansfield Town, who sit third.

If Birmingham can extend their cushion at the top in the next three games, it will be hard to see anyone stopping them from winning the league this season. Lincoln, like everyone else, will try and stop that from happening.

The Imps have started the season well under Michael Skubala, and I expect this will be another tough away trip for the Blues. They were flat when they played Charlton so drastic improvement is needed here, and they will need to be at their very best to come away with the three points.

Their unbeaten run was ended, but Lincoln's is still standing at seven matches. The hosts will make this another road trip for Birmingham, and this could end up being decided by the visitors' options from the bench.

There are a quite a few games this season where I'd be comfortable backing Blues to win, but I think I need the insurance here because Lincoln are one of the top sides in the division.

I've boosted the odds with both teams to score because it has been a winning selection in six of Birmingham's nine matches in League 1 this term.