King's Lynn Town face Chester in National League North

The Walks should be regarded as a tough place for visiting teams - but it’s proving just the opposite at the moment.

What should be advantages – sticky pitch, a club out on a limb geographically and a ground that hops when the home fans are in the right mood – have turned against the Linnets. The confidence oozes away once they concede.

Since the last National League North  win – a 4-0 triumph at Southport just before Christmas that now seems totally out of kilter with other results – Lynn have conceded more than once in five of their six matches. And each time, one goal against has been quickly followed by another:

Curzon (h) - scored three goals in eight minutes

Hereford (a) – two in five minutes

Buxton (a) - two in seven minutes

Boston (a) - two in four minutes

Boston (h) - two in two minutes

Lynn need to be winning home games to give themselves a fighting chance, but manager Adam Lakeland admits that is far from easy.

“We're trying different things to find ways to win games football, create more chances,” said Lakeland after Tuesday’s demoralising 4-0 loss at home to his former club, Curzon Ashton.

“We've changed system a few times, we've changed personnel a little bit and at the moment the things that we're trying, they're not working. This is as big a defeat as we've had since I've been here.

“I do think the players are finding it difficult playing here -the pitch is obviously not conducive to us playing, and I don't think it suits us all that much being in a second ball game because we've got a lot of inexperienced players and that's not their skill-set.

“I think obviously we are feeling the pressure here, and rightly so. There's no point shying away from that, but I do think probably when we have setbacks in games and we do go behind, I think some of the lads are maybe finding it difficult playing under the pressure of being here because I do think we've performed better on the road.

“But this should be one of the hardest places in the league to come - it's miles away, the pitch isn’t the best, and it's been far from that. We've got to look at ourselves, starting with me, and try and find a way, quick.”

The Walks crowd has put up with the frustrations of the season, but on Tuesday were much more vocal about the state of affairs on the pitch.

“Our supporters have been fantastic since I came here,” said Lakeland. “They've been right behind the team. We haven't given them a great deal to shout about and obviously today they've vented their frustrations at myself and that's just the nature of being the manager of any club. They are passionate, they want to see the team doing well. They've obviously had a very successful team last year. It's had major surgery in the summer and we've come in and we're trying to turn things around, but it's really difficult doing that within the season.#

“We're deep into this season now we're still in a fairly bleak position, although there is still plenty of games left, but they've got every right to show how disappointed they are, particularly tonight.”

The home win over Scunthorpe seems a world away for King's Lynn Town (Image: Ian Burt)

It’s a different world from the night in mid-November when Lynn saw off then leaders Scunthorpe United and The Walks shook to its foundations – today, there is genuine fear over what Chester may do.

Lakeland said: “You go from that and everybody thinks you're a genius and you've pulled off a tactical master class and here we are a few weeks later and you don't know what you're doing and you're useless and you're this and you're that. That's just the way it goes in this job. If you get good results, particularly against good teams, you're the best thing since sliced bread and if you have bad results and bad performances, then you don't know what you're doing.”

The manager will be hoping it’s a terrace chant he won’t have to endure today.