Kings Lynn Town Face Tough Test Against Chorley in Play-Off Eliminator
Kings Lynn Town boss, Michael Lakeland, is urging his team to produce a strong performance against Chorley in Tuesday’s National League North play-off eliminator, despite being the clear underdogs.
The Linnets finished the regular season with a 3-0 defeat to Chester on Saturday, which saw them drop to a lowly position in the table. However, Lakeland’s side has shown resilience and determination throughout the season, and the manager is confident that they can cause an upset against Chorley.
"Yes, I’d have liked [Omotayo] to play, to be honest," Lakeland told East Anglian Daily Press. "He just didn’t quite feel right when he was moving in certain directions, which is fine, but come on… come on. Dylan Crowe’s been playing with a bad ankle for four weeks, he man-marked [Scunthorpe’s] Callum Roberts, the best player, out of the game [on Good Friday]. Roll your sleeves up, grow some and play… and he will be playing on Tuesday."
Omotayo, who missed Saturday’s game with an ankle injury, will be crucial to Lynn’s chances of progressing in the play-offs. His performance in a goalless draw at home to Chorley less than a month ago was excellent, full of aggression and bullying of defenders that preceded a mini-run of three goals in the next two games. Lakeland is hoping for a repeat of that sort of performance on Tuesday.
"Here against Chorley, they’re a good side, brilliant centre halves at Chorley, don’t concede many goals, but in the first half Omotayo dominated their back line single-handedly and I need him to do that again for us on Tuesday," he said.
Lakeland, a self-described "tough northerner", believes that his team needs to show more of the "northern steel" that has characterised their season. "I think sometimes a little bit more of that northern steel still needs injecting into one or two and I’ll be putting plenty in the next 48 hours," he said.
Chorley finished the regular season above Lynn on goal difference, but Lakeland’s men have a reputation for causing upsets on their travels. "In isolated games, we can beat anybody," he said. "We’ve shown that before. The run that we’ve had up to the end of the season, if you look at our last 10 fixtures, it’s been really tough, really, really tough. But we’ve won some of those games, big games."
Despite being the underdogs, Lakeland is relishing the challenge. "I like being the underdog," he said. "Personally, I’ve always been an underdog. I’ve always worked at clubs where I’ve had to find ways to be competitive and get results with underdog clubs and underdog teams. And that’s obviously led me here, where we’re not always the underdog, because we’ve got that label of being full-time on our back and everybody expects us to do well, which is fine."
The underdog label, according to Lakeland, puts pressure on Chorley rather than his own team. "But I do think in this game on Tuesday that we are massive underdogs, yes, absolutely, because home advantage is massive in the play-offs, especially when you’ve got good home form, which Chorley have," he said. "They’ve got the experience of always being there or thereabouts and playing these big games. But I do think with home advantage comes a lot of pressure. We can go up there and not play free, but there’ll be a lot less pressure on us going up there than there will be on them and hopefully that’ll sway in our favour."
As the Linnets prepare to face Chorley on Tuesday, Lakeland is urging his team to give it their all and cause a surprise. With the right performance, he believes that they can make a deep run in the play-offs and secure a promotion.
Source: East Anglian Daily Press
