King's Lynn Town boss Lakeland on big win over Scunthorpe

The Linnets came from a goal down to lead 2-1 at the break, before man of the match George Morrison scored his second of the game in time added on to seal the points in front of a raucous home crowd.

“I thought the performance was outstanding,” said Lakeland. “I thought first half we had a game plan and I thought the players executed it brilliantly, absolutely brilliantly.”

Lynn went behind early on when former Linnets Andrew Boyce headed in Jacob Butterfield’s corner. Pre-Lakeland, that might have signalled a collapse against such highly-regarded opponents, but the current Linnets are made of sterner stuff, mentally and physically. Even so, goals from Josh Coulson and Morrison were perhaps still an unexpected bonus at half-time.

“Really disappointed with the goal we conceded,” said Lakeland. “But then I thought we showed tremendous character to get back level pretty quick and then obviously go and take the lead.

“Second-half we were obviously forced back and had to change shape a little bit, we couldn't get Billy (Jones) up the pitch, which we had quite a lot of success from in the first half. That was down to them just having more possession and control of the game. We needed to be gritty in that second half at times and I thought to a man we were.

“You always generally get another chance in football when you're pinned in a little bit. You always get the odd moments and thankfully for us we managed to get that third goal and wrap it up really late on.

“But I'm just so proud of the place tonight, because I thought we were absolutely top drawer and the the amount of effort, work rate, determination resilience, character, balls that we showed, that's everything I want to see in my team.

“And I think that the crowd fed off that and we fed off the crowd and I think it goes to show if we get the team putting that amount of effort in how much the supporters get behind us and together we can obviously be a real force.

“The supporters have been brilliant, for me, with the team since I came in, home and away. They've really got behind the players and I think that's because they see that they're giving everything and  think really as a football fan that's all you really want and expect, your team out there, giving their role and I think you respect that.

“I thought they were great and they gave us that lift when it got back to 1-1 and we were in the ascendancy at that point. Obviously the players went and took the game to them a little bit and played with the handbrake off a little bit of times.”

Lakeland stands by the belief that there has to be a level-headed reaction to the ups and downs of football – for example Saturday’s home defeat by Spennymoor after four games unbeaten was the chalk to Tuesday night’s cheese against Scunthorpe.

But what comes with each game is a sense of improvement.

“You can't be too emotional in football,” he said. “It's an emotional game, but you can't be too high when you win and you can't be too low when you lose. I thought for us to put that performance in off the back a little bit of an unbeaten run when we were going in the right direction and then you hit a hurdle on Saturday and you lose and you're like, ‘you've got Scunthorpe next’.

“But I'm not overly surprised, really. I think we've got a good team. I think we've got good lads and we are getting better all the time. It's a big three points for us, maybe three points that people might not have expected us to get. Now we've got to carry it into the next game.

Morrison – on loan from League One Fleetwood Town, has fast become a crowd favourite, but Lakeland revealed he came close to missing the game.

“He didn't train yesterday,” said the Lynn boss. “He was sick on Sunday, he was being sick yesterday. He wasn't well and he didn't want to play today. He was outstanding. And not only him, Cameron (Hargreaves) the pair of them in there they're absolutely brilliant and the whole team.”