Boss Kieran McKenna believes the Blues will need to improve in 2023 as he expects other sides to get better in the second half of the campaign.
Town go into 2023 second in League One, four points behind leaders Plymouth and ahead of Sheffield Wednesday in third on goals scored, the Blues and Owls otherwise having an identical record so far in 2022/23.
Overall in 2022, Town took 87 points from their 46 league games across the two half-seasons, an average of 1.89 per match, again behind the Wednesday (97 from 47, 2.06) and the Pilgrims (90 from 46, 1.96).
Having celebrated his 50th match in charge early last month and then a year as manager at Portman Road shortly afterwards, McKenna admitted he’s not had the time nor inclination to reflect specifically about 2022.
"No cause at all,” he laughed. "Certainly on a professional level, it’s been such a busy week, it's so busy preparing for the games and it's been a busy month and a month where there have been a few different anniversaries, so no, it's another day, it's another game and one that we have to be ready for and prepare well for.
"Of course, I'll enjoy sitting with my wife and chatting about the year and the family move and what we hope for for the year ahead, but on a professional level, it's all eyes on Lincoln.”
Assessing the position in League One going into the new year, McKenna said: "It's so competitive in the division that we can only focus on ourselves and our performances.
"There has been lots of noise and comments about us and our performances and we can only take that as a compliment and when people reference how good we are, I think they are probably referencing our style of play and dominance in games.
"But the reality is that there are other teams in fantastic form. Plymouth have been so consistent in terms of results, their points total is fantastic at the moment and they've got good experience of being in these positions.
"They've been at the top of League One over the last couple of years and they've been in the play-off positions.
"The same for Sheffield Wednesday, a team who just missed out on automatic promotion last year.
"There are other teams out there who have been in better positions than us over the last few years in really good form, so I think it's probably a little bit disrespectful to refer to us as the best team when those teams have collected so many points and been so dominant.
"For us, we just keep focusing on ourselves and our performances. We know that we've improved a lot from last season and we're in a much healthier position and we have to keep focusing on that.
"As for the other teams, it's up to them to keep their performances and their results as they have been, and we'll see where we are at the end of the season.”
Despite all the compliments, the Northern Irishman believes Town will have to get better if they’re to achieve their ultimate goal of winning promotion back to the Championship.
"I think we definitely will need to improve,” he said. "I think everyone will improve in the second half of the season.
"I think everyone will look to strengthen their squads and I think it showed in the second half of last season that there were a lot of teams who accumulated an awful lot of points in the second half of the year.
"So we're going to have to improve. I think there's still lots of scope for us to improve. Individually players are still developing at a good rate and adding to the games.
"As a team, I think we've hit a really high performance level in general and we've been the dominant team in the league in terms of creating chances and not giving many away, but we can certainly improve how we keep consistently converting that into points.
"And we're looking forward to the future. We've come from a position where there were 10 teams that finished above us last year. Seven of them are still in the league and three teams have come down from the Championship and kept really strong squads.
"So we know the competition is really fierce, we know that we're developing in the right way and it's just about continuing to do that day to day and staying calm and level, and we'll see where that takes us at the end.”
There was sad news for football in the final days of 2022 with the death of Brazilian legend Pele at the age of 82.
"Before my time in terms of having the privilege to watch him live or watch a lot of games,” McKenna said.
"But I've really enjoyed watching over the last 24 hours some of the tributes and old footage of the goals that he scored and the player that he was.
"Obviously a marvellous footballer and very well spoken about as a person, and a sad day for football, but also, I guess, a day to celebrate one of the game's greats.”