Ranking Lincoln City's last 7 managers from worst to best – Kennedy = 3rd | OneFootball

Lincoln City will hope the 2023/24 campaign can be one full of positives rather than negatives.

The Imps are now into their fifth consecutive League One season, and they have managed to establish themselves as a third-tier side.

However, since reaching League One, they have yet to hit the heights they were achieving in previous seasons, but they hope they can change that this season and beyond.

Lincoln will hope their next manager who comes through the door can have a successful spell at the club and one that will be fondly remembered for years to come.

Here, at Football League World

7 Steve Tilson

Tilson was in charge of Lincoln from October 2010 to October 2011, and he was the manager who was in charge when the club was relegated back to the National League.

It was a messy time during Tilson’s spell, and on the pitch, he only managed 11 wins in 37 games in charge.

6 Gary Simpson

Lincoln appointed Simpson as manager in February 2013, which was his second spell at the club, as he had previously been caretaker manager.

Simpson wasn’t in the role for long, as he was sacked by the club in November of the same year after being placed on gardening leave. Overall, his tenure at the club wasn’t very successful.

5 David Holdsworth

Holdsworth was the next manager at Lincoln, replacing Tilson, and he was first placed in charge until the end of the 2011/12 season.

However, he kept the role until February 2013, when it was mutually agreed that he would leave. In his first season, he guided the club to a 17th-place finish in the Conference League, but when he left, the Imps were sitting in 18th place.

4 Chris Moyses

Moyses took charge of the Imps after Simpson had left the club, and after a month of being in caretaker charge, he was given the role on a permanent basis.

In his two seasons in charge, Lincoln managed 15th and 13th place finishes, and as he signed a 12-month rolling contract, at the end of the 2015/16 season, it was decided he would be leaving the club.

3 Mark Kennedy

Kennedy is the most recent Lincoln manager, as he was brought in in May 2022 and left the club in October 2023.

The Irishman had a very good first season at the club, as they finished the campaign in 11th place and did so playing some decent football.

Teams found it difficult to beat the Imps, as shown by them drawing 20 games last season. It was a good starting point for Kennedy, but it seemed it couldn’t be carried on into the 2023/24 season, and he was sacked two months into the campaign.

2 Michael Appleton

Appleton arrived at Lincoln with plenty of managerial experience under his belt. Lincoln turned to him after Danny Cowley left the club following their promotion to the third tier.

Appleton was at the club from September 2016 to April 2022, and during that time he guided Lincoln to a fifth-place finish in the league.

They missed out on the play-off final, but Appleton put together an exciting team, with some of them now playing in the Premier League.

His final season wasn’t as successful, and it was announced after the final game that he would be leaving, having taken charge of 143 games and won 55 of them.

1 Danny Cowley

It will come as no surprise to see that Danny Cowley has been ranked as Lincoln’s best manager out of the last seven managerial appointments.

Cowley took charge of the Imps in May 2016, and in his first season at the club, he guided them to promotion to the Football League. In that same season, he magnificently guided the club to the FA Cup quarterfinals, and they were the first non-league club to reach that stage in over a century.

Once back in the EFL, Cowley guided the Imps to success in the EFL Trophy, and in their first season in League Two, they finished in the play-offs but missed out on promotion. However, in 2019, he guided Lincoln to League One by being crowned League Two champions.