Ian Culverhouse says he would be throwing lambs to the slaughter if he plugged the gaps in his King’s Lynn Town side with players from the club’s under-21s team.

The Linnets boss has seen six of his National League squad furloughed, with the prospect of more to come after the weekend trip to Woking, which will leave him down to the bare bones.

There have been offers from free agents, while there is emerging talent among the youths, who play in the Thurlow Nunn First Division North – at level 10, five levels below the senior team.

“People keep saying you can get freebies in, but freebies aren’t going to travel two hours to King’s Lynn and play for nothing,” said Culverhouse.

“So we will probably look at the youth section or the academy and try and bring people on - but I am telling you now, this is a man’s league.

“We struggled early on (this season) and we’ve got men, and if people actually think we can fill our side with young boys and give them a run-around, it will do more damage than good.

“I know they think they are being part of it, but you have got to think who they are up against here and it could demoralise a few of them.

“We struggled with the physicality (early on the season) – and you are asking a kid to go and compete against big (Kyle) Wootton (Notts County player) back there?

“They will get eaten alive.”

“But this is the position we are in and we get on with it.”

The 50-year-old Lynn can trust in a crisis

It is understood a number of players have offered their services to Lynn, but Culverhouse is between a rock and a hard place as he plots the team’s circuitous path to the end of the season.

“We have had numerous agents saying that his player is available – no disrespect, but if they are any good they would be with a side, and I don’t want to lose what we have created here,” he said.

“I have always said that this is a tight group, very, very tight. They try and look after each other as much as they can and we are being pushed in a position that I don’t think is particularly fair on them. But, the league has put us in this position.

“All I worry about is, I want a football club to come back to in the summer. And if we have to go down this route and secure the future of it we will do it, but all I want to do after this season finishes, which is a farce of a season, is make sure there is a football club there and I want to come back in the summer and be a part of King’s Lynn and see if we can improve what we are doing.

“It is the situation we have been put in – none of us wants to be in it but it is a farcical situation to be put in, it really is.”