Lincoln City v Doncaster Rovers: Grant McCann's defiant message to any critics

Hard times are part of the ticket for managers at certain spells. As far as McCann is concerned, it brings out the best in him. And history backs that up.

Take 2023-24 for instance when Rovers were down among the dead men in League Two in the late winter and went agonisingly close to promotion by late spring.

And then there was his time at former club Hull City when the Tigers bounced back from a horrendous second half of 2019-20 - including an infamous 8-0 drubbing at Wigan Athletic - to win the third-tier title the following year and return to the Championship in style at the first time of asking in 2020-21.

As for any critics of him or his side in the present day, the Ulsterman has a clear and defiant message to the dissenters. Carry on.

He told The Yorkshire Post: "Always through my career, really, I've loved to be (criticised).. I've loved it.

"I love hearing people saying that he's not good enough or that player's not good enough or the manager's not good enough or we're cr*p and this team's going to beat us.

"I see all this stuff and love it. I actually love it because I’ve loved getting to the end of the season.

"I actually did it last year. I'm not going to name any names, but I picked the phone up to a couple of people at the end of last season and just reminded them of some of their comments and what they said to us and things like that. It's a long season…

"It does drive me because actually it does hurt me and drives me to be better and push players to where I know they can be really.

"I stay calm about it. I can be furious inside, but I know that the motivation is there to shut everybody up really or the ones who are shouting from the rooftops."

Shutting people up brings us nicely to today's encounter at Sincil Bank, a venue where McCann has his own special memory from his time with Hull in April 2021.

"The last time I was there, we clinched promotion that day," McCann recalls.

"There was a certain somebody in the stand that day that didn't think we'd do that. So it was nice to prove him wrong. Without mentioning any names (again)."

While Rovers have their own reasons for points in the cathedral city today, Lincoln are certainly not short of incentive on a day when victory will see them move to the top of the table, potentially.

Lincoln’s progression since being elevated to League One in 2018-19 has been incrementally impressive. A well-run club, the Imps are now striving for the next step, namely promotion to the Championship. That remains McCann's driving force at Rovers as well and why he returned.

He continued: "There is a lot to admire about them (Lincoln) and behind the scenes, they're improving.

"They have built a brand new training ground over the last four or five years and I know Jez (George), the head of recruitment and the chief executive there.

"He is a good guy. Obviously, Jez came down a lot last year when Streety (Rob Street) was here to visit us.

"The recruitment's good, with a strong and good management team. Mike (Skubala) is a good guy and a good coach.

"I like what they do. But really, my focus is on us. I think we're planting some really good foundations."

Rovers renew acquaintances with a familiar face in former loanee Street, who will always be remembered fondly for his stellar contribution in the second half of last season when he scored 11 goals and played his full part in the club's League Two championship-winning campaign.

There were some rumours that Doncaster would push to sign Street on a permanent basis in the summer, but McCann insists it was never seriously in the equation.

"No, it was always a non-starter," McCann commented.

"Look, Lincoln turned down well over a million pounds for him at the end of last season.

So it tells you how well he'd done here in such a short space of time and how well he was respected by the players and the staff and the fans.

"He got into really good positions and took his chances.

"We brought in Sean Grehan for a small fee from Crystal Palace (in the summer), but we haven't spent any (big money). Since I've been here, we haven't spent (big) money.

"We're certainly not going to be splashing out a million pounds on a centre-forward, even though how much we really, really rate him."