Adam Lakeland takes his new-look King’s Lynn Town team on their travels this weekend hoping to build on an impressive opening day.
The Linnets head to Alfreton with three points in the bag after a 3-1 home win over Warrington kicked off their National League North campaign.
Lakeland started six of his summer recruits, with three more on the bench – and they didn’t let him down, from the experience of Gold Omotayo and Greg Taylor to the young but impressive teenager Cody Johnson, who came in on loan from Stockport just days before the game.
“He was brilliant,” said Lakeland. “Been a bit frustrating for us - we felt we might have got him a couple of weeks earlier and that would have given us a little bit of extra time for him to settle into the team, but obviously that wasn't the case and he came in with us on Monday - his first day in with us, he was paintballing with us in the woods.
“He's settled right into it in training. I think he got stronger and more vocal, more confident throughout the week as he's got to know his team-mates and I thought his performance was incredibly mature and composed and it just allowed the lads ahead of him to go and do what we've seen they can do so well.
“He's got that discipline and he holds the middle of the pitch and he reads the game well, breaks up attacks for the opposition. I thought he was tremendous and, again, he's another one that's only going to get better the more he plays games for us.”
Tommy Hughes has been around longer, but had little chance to impress after Lakeland took over last September, having missed the summer campaign with injury: this year, there have been no such issues, and the former Ipswich Town youth player is showing the benefits.
“I think that's probably a result of him having a full pre-season, being fitter, being stronger, probably being more confident,” said Lakeland.
“I think he missed all of pre-season and he was still injured when we came in. You're generally always playing catch-up if you miss pre-season, and you've also got to remember that he's still young, he was in a team that was struggling last year, so I think it was probably a difficult 12 months for him.
“But I think all the lads that are still with us from last season, certainly like the younger, less experienced players, shall we say, they are much better players now for having those challenging times. Adversity makes you stronger in anything you do.”
Hughes revelled in his midfield role against Warrington.
“We've played him a little bit deeper in pre-season because we kind of knew that's how we wanted to go in midfield with one lower and two higher,” explained Lakeland. “And it is not natural to Tommy to play that low. You want to get him a little bit higher up the pitch if you can and I thought (against Warrington) he did very, very well and it just shows the strength in depth that we've got.
“Josh McCammon’s played there pretty much all pre-season, he's had a good pre-season, he's a top player and we just felt it was right to start with Tommy and bring Josh on because later on we anticipated that the game might open up. Josh is very good at driving with the ball from the middle of the pitch, but by the time we got to that stage of the game, we were already in a pretty strong position. It was good day for Tommy, but I think collectively, individually it was a really good day all round.”
Lynn took four points against Alfreton last season, with a home win early on - the hosts reached the play-offs, but began this season with a 3-1 defeat at Southport.
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