Lincoln City 2, Cardiff City 1

The Imps made it five consecutive home league victories as they recorded victory over Cardiff City to go into Christmas on a high.

City struck first when Reeco Hackett's ball into the area was sent into his own net by Alex Robinson. The visitors levelled in the second period but Sonny Bradley headed home a deserved winner.

Head coach Michael Skubala was pleased to reward supporters for their backing with the perfect Christmas present - describing his side’s performance in the victory as sensational.

He said: “Three points is the perfect Christmas present - I thought the performance was sensational and we did everything we wanted to against a really top team.

“It felt like a big game for us with the big crowd and away fans - our supporters were sensational and they played their part. We need everyone to be together and connected just like that to go on and achieve what we want to this season.”

He had made just the one change to the lineup who earned a hard-fought point on the road at Blackpool last weekend. Freddie Draper came into the City attack as Conor McGrandles made his 150th start for the Imps.

The Imps got the breakthrough on the 40 minute mark as City found themselves in an advanced position with the ball at Reeco Hackett’s feet, he looked to play a through ball to Jack Moylan who made a clever run into the Bluebirds penalty area, before the ball could reach the Irishman, Robertson slid in to intercept but in doing so diverted the ball into his own net.

The visitors hit back after 49 minutes with some very good football giving the 1,600 travelling fans something to cheer. Perry Ng was both the goalscorer and the orchestrater, he picked the ball up around 25-yards out before playing triangular balls with both Omari Kellyman and also Salech who played a ball round the corner back to Ng who made no mistake putting it past George Wickens.

City restored their lead after 67 minutes when Tendayi Darikwa’s long-range effort got deflected out for a corner which was subsequently taken by Tom Bayliss. He curled the ball perfectly to the back post where Bradley rose highest and managed to guide his headed effort past Matt Turner in the Cardiff goal.

Skubala added: “We changed shape after they scored to be more aggressive and I thought we could have gone on to score more as we finished strongly.

“It’s a tough league - if you’re not on it you can get beat and resilience is really important. Cardiff would have got on top of many teams after they equalised, but we flipped it. In that moment the lads were so brave and aggressive.

“This place is a bit of a fortress and any team coming here knows they are in for a tough game.”

Attendance: 9,913 (1,617 away)