High-energy Hmami a new favourite with Linnets fans

There were a few eyebrows raised when Josh Hmami arrived in the summer but the midfielder has already endeared himself to Linnets supporters.Hmami’s high-energy style caught the eye as the Linnets made a winning start to the new National League North season with a 3-1 victory over Warrington Town on Saturday.The 24-year-old was at the heart of everything good for the hosts in a brilliant opening-day win and the only thing lacking from his man-of-the-match performance was a goal.Only the post and the brilliance of Dan Atherton denied the Oldham-born playmaker one of his own.”He was all over the place, wasn’t he,” admitted Linnets boss Adam Lakeland after the game.”He was industrious, he was creative and I think if he’d have played until Christmas he wouldn’t have scored.”But no, he was superb and I thought everybody was to a man today and it was a good start for us.” The likes of Ross Crane, Tommy Hughes and Cody Johnson all played supporting roles and Lynn’s midfield looks strong. It is possibly their best engine room for several seasons and the summer departure of Cameron Hargreaves has been quickly forgotten.”That’s how I want us to play, you know, with energy and tempo,” said Lakeland after the game.”We’ve got legs all over the team now, which is so important and we were able to press and were able to recover. “When the fixtures came out, I felt that this was a real tricky first game for us.“Every single person that I spoke to said ‘You’ll win’ but I like to think I’m always respectful of every side we play against because every game is tough and they’re a very, very dangerous team on transition. “I think they’ve got an excellent manager who always sets his teams up well. They’ve got good experience and legs from the striker and the three lads in behind.“In the past, we might struggled against teams that transitioned so well. “One is that we weren’t so good with the ball in the past, which meant there were more transitions than you would like and secondly, we didn’t always have the the legs and the athleticism right across the pitch to recover.”Today I think we handled the ball a lot better and we played some really good football in spells throughout the game.”The times when the transitions did happen, the recovery runs of our players were outstanding and we’re only going to get fitter and stronger as we play more and more competitive games now.”It’s only three points but it’s a good start and a good performance. I thought it was bouncing here today so massive credit to everybody around the club.”