“It’s been a phenomenal effort from the players,” says Linnets boss after Oxford City win

Linnets manager Adam Lakeland highlighted his side’s excellent away form as they kept tabs on the leading pack in the National League North with a fine 3-1 win at Oxford City.Josh Hmami gave Lynn a two-goal cushion at the break with his second effort in the space of three days after an own goal had handed the Linnets the lead.Midfielder Sam Walker wrapped up the three points after Corie Andrews had pulled a goal back for the hosts early in the second half.Lynn’s only blemish on their travels came at Alfreton earlier in the campaign and Lakeland said: “If people do their homework thoroughly, we’ve only lost three away from home in our last 19 games so this run of picking up results on the road has been going since January.”It’s been a phenomenal effort from the players. We spoke yesterday if you look at the top of the league at Scunthorpe, Chorley, Alfreton, ourselves, Curzon Ashton and Hereford the one common denominator with all of those teams is that they are defensively solid and don’t concede many goals.”That’s what you’ve got to be in this league because you can’t always play pretty football. It’s about being organised and resilient and finding ways to get results, particularly away from home.”Not only have we done that this season on the road, we’ve done it for quite a long period now and that’s an important thing for us.” Lakeland praised the persistence of Finlay Barnes in the build-up to Lynn’s second goal at Marsh Lane. “Fin has chased a ball that he has no right to get but willingness is an important trait in a footballer.”The easy thing is to give up and not cover the extra yards but he’s chased a ball there that other players would just see go out and he has got us a goal on the back of that. He’s kept it in play and Josh Hmami scores.”The big message to the players at half-time was that we knew they would come out. try to press us and try to inject a bit more life, energy and tempo into the game. “The message was whoever got the next goal, particularly if it was them, we had to show composure and I felt that we did and we managed to have little spells with the ball that enabled us to get up the pitch a little bit and grow into the second half.”The third goal has come at a really good time and probably sucked the life out of them.” Oxford City: McKenzie-Lyle, Ezennolim (Roddy 86), Ashby, Jones, Coyle (Burley 76), Fleet, Andrews, McEachran, Scott (Parker 73), Carbon, Drewe. Subs not used: Kpekawa, Potter.Booked: Coyle, Drewe, Fleet. Scorer: Andrews 57.Lynn: Boyes, Crowe, Wilson, McFadden, Taylor, Walker, McCammon, Hughes (Omotayo 84), Crane (Williams 90+3), Hmami (Ronan 89), Barnes (Coulson 89). Subs not used: Jones.Booked: Crane.Scorers: Jones own goal 14, Hmami 32. Walker 77.Attendance: 361.