Gary Setchell is backing his King's Lynn Town troops to deliver the goods against the league leaders.

The Linnets have saved their finest performances against the Southern League Premier Division's big-hitters during an inconsistent start to the campaign. So that's why the arrival of table-topping Leamington holds no fears for the hosts – even though they sit 14 places below them in the table.

'We're putting a lot of pressure on these special performances because of the displays away from home and against the bottom sides,' said Lynn boss Setchell. 'It's such a bizarre scenario at any level of football. You can't beat three teams in the top six and only take two points from six of the bottom seven. Every next game we don't produce it's putting a cup final feeling about the next game.

'They're not going to come any tougher than Leamington. Poole and Chippenham were tough. Leamington will be equally tough. But we know we're capable.'

Defenders Jordan Yong and Sam Gaughran are back in contention for this afternoon's clash but Conor Marshall looks unlikely to overcome his own injury problems. Striker Toby Hilliard sits out the second of his three-game ban.

Setchell said: 'It's not easy to manage these situations when you're playing a team that are top of the league and you've put a little bit of pressure on yourselves. If we can reproduce the performances of Poole, Chippenham, Cirencester and Cambridge City we'll be a match for anybody though.'

Saturday's morale-crushing 1-0 FA Cup defeat at Barwell was followed up with a much-changed side triumphing 3-1 in the League Cup at Barton Rovers. Peterborough United loanee Jack Friend scored his first goals for the club, with Lee Stevenson netting the other, and Setchell expects the former's brace will enable him to have more of an impact in the coming weeks.

'I think those goals will give him some confidence,' added Lynn's boss. 'Jack's in a funny situation really where I don't think he really knows what his best position is. We started him up top on Tuesday and then moved him out to the left. He scored a goal in each position. He'll say his best position is behind the frontman and in under-18 level it probably is. But at this level his size and physicality makes it tough to know.

'This is a learning experience for Jack Friend. He'll hopefully go on to be a little bit bigger and better than King's Lynn. He's helping us out and we're helping him out.'