Linnets end pre-season with home goalless draw

Linnets boss Mark Hughes opted to rest his best players as King’s Lynn Town ended their pre-season with a drab goalless draw at home to Corby Town.

It is normally a given that managers end the summer by fielding their strongest team with the new season just a week away – but Lynn’s boss chose otherwise in an effort to protect his threadbare squad from further injuries.

Emmanuel Oke and Sion Spence were rested on Saturday because of minor knocks while Kyle Callan-McFadden was sidelined with illness – but all three are expected to be available for Lynn’s National League North opener at home to Hereford on Saturday.

Hughes said: “I was a bit cautious today, and it wasn’t always in my planning, but that was our seventh pre-season game.

“We’ve come through unscathed and I’m happy with the way it’s gone.

“The last two away games were really good performances and I felt like we’ve done enough in terms of what we’ve got, especially with the attacking players, and more than anything, it was a little bit of a rest.

“Training gives us a chance Monday to start fresh. You don’t have to do a recovery day, and that was the main thinking about it.”

Hughes went with a diamond formation against the Steelmen as he again ran the rule over a number of trialists, including Heacham’s Fletcher Toll, who got more than an hour of action at The Walks.

“That was literally (about) personnel and we just wanted to give people minutes so we sorted a shape out around that,” he said. “Obviously I wanted Fletcher Toll and Charlie Royle and Q (Bartley) to get into their proper positions and that was really the main reason for the diamond.

“You know boys can adjust, it might be that we go that way during the season, but I think it won’t be too dissimilar to our shape from last year.”

Corby Town – managed by former Lynn boss Gary Setchell – wasted three good chances in the first half.

Ex-Linnet Toby Hilliard was guilty of squandering two, while Quaine Bartley smashed an effort against the left upright for the Linnets in the second half.

Setchell has his own injury woes for the Steelmen – but the 90 minutes still worked as a useful exercise for both sides, with Lynn getting valuable minutes into the legs of both Tommy Dixon-Hodge and Cameron Hargreaves.

With Lynn losing Olly Scott on the eve of Saturday’s encounter, Lynn’s boss is in the market for two new faces before the big kick-off next Saturday – a left-back and a new striker – and further movement on one of those is likely early next week.