Neil starts: The Sunderland XI we expect to see v Lincoln City

Sixth placed Sunderland travel to Lincoln City this weekend.

The Black Cats will be hoping for three points to help secure their space in the play-offs.

As it stands, Sunderland sit just inside the play-off spots but only one point ahead of Sheffield Wednesday and Wycombe behind them.

Although Lincoln are struggling in comparison as they find themselves 18th in the table, following a recent win against Sheffield Wednesday and a hard loss against top of the table Rotherham United last weekend, Lincoln will no doubt be up for this game too.

Here we look at how Sunderland might line-up this weekend.

Here we see Anthony Patterson starting in goal and he will be hoping to keep a third clean sheet in four games.

We see an unchanged three in front of the keeper consisting of Carl Winchester, Bailey Wright and Dennis Cirkin who were able to keep a clean sheet in last week’s 2-0 victory against Crewe.

We see five in midfield again with Lynden Gooch retaining his place on the right.

Dan Neil steps in for Luke O’Nein who has recently come out from a lengthy period on the sidelines caused by injury. Neil replaced O’Nein as a substitute during Saturday’s game and scored his side’s second goal in the 84th minute so we see him rewarded for his efforts.

Captain Corry Evans retains his place alongside Jay Matete and Jack Clarke as they will be hoping they can push forward and contribute to goals as Clarke did assisting the second goal last weekend.

Unsurprisingly Ross Stewart starts up as top scorer who is doing unbelievably this season having a return of 22 goals for the season so far.

Patrick Roberts joins Stewart up at the top of the pitch after his 89th minute goal that secured Sunderland three points last weekend when he came on to