King’s Lynn Town manager Adam Lakeland has lauded the impact of Gabriel Rogers, after the youngster’s 18-minute cameo helped the Linnets to victory at Rushall Olympic last night.
Rogers, who only signed for the club on Tuesday morning, came off the bench to win the late penalty which Bartosz Cybulski converted to hand Lynn only their second away victory of the National League North season.
The former Yeovil Town, Torquay United and Kidderminster Harriers playmaker showed glimpses of his potential as the Linnets defeated the Pics for the very first time on their own patch.
Speaking after the game, Lakeland said: “I told Norman (Cesar) not to put his name on the back of the shirt as we wanted to keep him up our sleeves a little bit.
“Joking aside, I thought he was brilliant. He got on the ball, tried to make things happen and injected that little bit of quality and tempo into our play and he’s only trained with us twice.
“We always felt he could have an impact on the game and I thought he showed real quality and composure when he came on. His pass that created the penalty was something else.
“Good players are on the same wavelength. Ben Stephens made the run and it was a brilliant pass. Ben got to the ball first, was brought down and Bart (Cybulski) has tucked the penalty away.
“It’s important that we don’t stick too much expectation on his shoulders as we’ve got a lot of other good players at this club.
“But if we can get him in the club, smiling and enjoying his football again and can find somewhere in the team where we can get the most out of him, I think he will continue to create goals and chip in with a few as well.”
The hosts went ahead on 29 minutes through Danny Waldron’s overhead kick, but Stephens made it all square with 11 minutes of normal time remaining.
Lakeland was delighted with Lynn’s overall performance, saying: “At half-time it was about reiterating to the players that we’d played quite well in the first half and that we needed to do the same again in the second half.
“I felt if we could get that leveller and there was enough time on the board that we could go on and win the game and that’s what we said to the players at half-time.
“I was really pleased with the attitude of the team, the composure we showed and how we moved the ball against a side that does really well here.
“To come from behind takes real character and balls and that’s what we need. It would have been so easy for us to feel sorry for ourselves at half-time, but we didn’t.
“We played with a purpose, like we weren’t going to accept defeat. We weren’t at our best on Saturday and got a point at another difficult place to go and today we’ve come from behind to get a very important win.
“We said before the weekend that if we could pick up four points from the teams in and around us it would be a reasonable return.
“I’m pleased for the players and the supporters, who showed their appreciation to the players for showing that character.
“It’s only one game and we won’t be getting carried away but it keeps that run going and we’re now four games unbeaten.”
