Chris Cohen says City will continue to evolve as they adapt to life in the Championship, with the focus firmly on selecting the right team for each challenge.
The Imps made 11 changes for Tuesday night’s Carabao Cup victory at Blackpool, providing opportunities for a number of summer arrivals as well as players who had featured less regularly during the opening Championship fixtures.
Cohen insists there is no distinction between established members of the squad and new additions when it comes to team selection.
He said: “Picking the best team to win - that’s all we do. With new players, sometimes it’s going to take longer for a new player to integrate and sometimes they do it really quickly.
“We are so happy with the group that we retained from last year and we know they’re capable at Championship level.
“But it’s mine and Tom’s job, and our job as a staff, to put the right balance of the team out for every game and we’ll continue to do that. We evaluate how Bolton Wanderers play and then we put the best team together to win that game."
Cohen knows City will face a stern test at Bolton, whose head coach Steven Schumacher is someone he knows well.
He added: “Steven is a good friend of mine and we still speak all the time - though not this week! We won’t speak this week.
“Steven always sets his teams up really well. We know the game that we’re going to face and we know the challenges it’s going to bring.
“But we go into every game with a plan that we think will end up getting us three points against a really good team and a really well-coached team.”
City also discovered their Carabao Cup third-round opponents this week, with a trip to Premier League Bournemouth awaiting them.
Cohen sees parallels between the journeys of the two clubs and is looking forward to the opportunity for his players to test themselves against top-flight opposition.
He said: “You look at a team like Bournemouth 10 or 15 years ago and the journey they’ve been on, then you look at a team like Lincoln 10 or 15 years ago and the journey we’ve been on. There are a lot of similarities in our story and theirs.
“We know it’ll be a very tough game, but every player wants to test themselves and every coach wants to test themselves against the best in the world.
“Bournemouth are a standout Premier League team now and we can’t wait to go down there and hopefully give the fans another good evening in the cup.”