King’s Lynn boss looks for big improvement from his players ahead of Southport and Kidderminster Harriers home games
King's Lynn Town manager Adam Lakeland has spent the week trying to effect a change in his side’s form ahead of two huge games at The Walks in the next few days.
The Linnets host Southport in the National League North tomorrow and follow it up by entertaining Kidderminster Harriers on Tuesday night.
Lynn's boss turned another year older in the week but is already wise enough to know the reasons behind his side's recent slump on the pitch.
"Hard work and we have to look at things now," he said in the wake of Lynn's FA Trophy exit against Leamington at the weekend.
"Usually when you are on a losing run there's something fundamentally wrong but I don't believe we've been really poor in all of those games.
"There have been moments in those games where lapses of concentration, errors and bits of bad luck have resulted in us going behind in all four of the games.
"When you go behind you can come back and win a game now and again but when you're going behind four games in a row then it's difficult to win."
After being within touching distance of the top spot three weeks ago, Lynn - not helped by the match officials - have also displayed something of a soft underbelly, slipping to ninth place in the table in the process.
"We have to eradicate the soft goals we are conceding," said Lynn's boss.
"We took pride earlier in the season being hard to beat, difficult to play against and defensively solid but I'm seeing us leak really soft goals.
"I'd like to say that is not like us but it is four games in a row now where we have conceded soft goals or suffered misfortune from poor officiating.
"We've got to work hard, remember who we are and get our identity back and we'll be putting the hard work in."
The Lynn boss dismissed suggestions that his side's weekend demise in the FA Trophy may be a blessing in disguise.
"I want to be winning games of football," he said.
"When we're not winning, I'm not happy and neither are the players.
"We went to Leamington to progress but we didn't allow ourselves to do that with the way we started the game.
"We're out the completion and yes we can pull all of our eggs in the basket of the league.
"King's Lynn hadn't done well in this competition for years and we wanted to get past this first hurdle to see if we could get a bit of a run going."