“They are paid to play, they’re not paid to just sit on spin bikes every week,” says Linnets boss

King’s Lynn Town manager Adam Lakeland wants everyone back and fighting for their places on the pitch as his side prepare for their latest National League North assignment at Rushall Olympic tomorrow night.

Lynn’s injured trio of Tommy Dixon-Hodge, Tommy Hughes and Jordan Ponticelli are all edging closer to a playing return, although none of them are likely to feature for the trip to the north-east side of Walsall.

“They’re all getting closer,” revealed Lakeland after the 1-1 draw at Peterborough Sports on Saturday.

“You don’t want to put too much pressure on them but we do need them back on the pitch.

“Tommy and Ponts are both at the stage where they’re running and they’re doing well.

“Obviously, we need to get them back into full training and then give them a little bit of time to step it up.

“I’d like to think by the end of this month we will have at least one of them back because we need them back.

“They are good players, but they’re no good to anyone if they’re injured all the time.

“You’re only as good as the players you have on the pitch and there’s no point having three, four or five really good players sat in the stands every other month.

“That’s no good to any manager, so they’re working hard. They’ve got to keep working hard, but they’ve also got to have a desire to get back on the pitch.”

Goalkeeper Dixon-Hodge hasn’t been seen in a Linnets shirt this season and the shotstopper’s long-term absence highlights the club’s injury woes this campaign.

Lakeland said: “Tommy is having issues, but he’s another one who I think, certainly since I came in, the club couldn’t have done any more to support him in trying to get to the bottom of his problem.

“It should have been done as soon as he got the injury. If you get a player with an injury, you’ve got to find out what’s wrong and then you’ve got to find out quickly how to get him right.

“I think we’ve probably lost many weeks not doing that at the start, but fair play to the chairman and the club as we couldn’t have done anymore now.

“We’ve had to invest quite a bit of money in getting a couple of scans, seeing specialists and having an injection last Monday.

“On Monday morning he better be back in working hard and trying to get back in this team because we can’t have players sat on long-term contracts and not showing a burning desire to get back on the pitch.

“They are paid to play, they’re not paid to just sit on spin bikes every week.”

Rushall Olympic only managed just two points from their first six games of the season,

But the arrival of midfielder Tom Tonks and Luther Munakandafa, on loan from Notts County, and winger Tyrell Skeen-Hamilton, from Banbury, has seen them turn the corner with five wins and a draw from nine games.

Leading scorer for the Pics with 11 goals from 15 appearances is Danny Waldron, a summer signing from Alvechurch.

Waldron has found the net in their last four outings including four goals in the 5-0 win over Chorley.

“I haven’t been to Rushall for quite a few years and obviously now they’ve they’ve put artificial down, which I’m not a big fan of,” said Lakeland.

“It’s going to be a different type of game and another tough fixture. I met them with Curzon Ashton earlier in the season and they gave us a really tough game.

“They were promoted and naturally, like any promoted side, they come into the season with with momentum.

“I think they’ve lost today (Saturday), so they’ll obviously want to bounce back on Tuesday but so will we.

“It’s going to be tough but we’ve just got to rest and recover and be ready to go.”

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