'He epitomises everything that we want to be as a team' - Lynn boss on McFadden
Adam Lakeland believes King’s Lynn Town defender Kyle McFadden is one of the best central defenders in the league.
“He's just a top player,” said the Linnets boss. “He epitomises everything that we want to be as a team – quality, competitive, difficult to play against, determined to win, prepared to run through brick walls to get results. And generally, when he's not in the team, the results dip a little bit.
“I think he's one of the best centre halves in this league. And he's an absolute diamond of a bloke as well. He's a top player.”
McFadden, 29, is Lynn’s longest serving player, having moved from Sligo Rovers in November, 2020.
The Norwich City 2013 FA Youth Cup winner's modus operandi has always been hard but fair – exemplified during Saturday’s home defeat by Hereford when he had a couple of running battles which were interesting sideshows to the main event.
One involved one-time Linnet Alex Babos who, having left a little on McFadden in one challenge, quickly found himself ‘grounded’ by the Lynn man – a quick friendly exchange, a word or two and a pat on the shoulder followed. Situation sorted.
“The best players generally are hard, but they’re fair, they compete and they do everything they have to do to try and get the better of their opponent and to try and win a game of football,” said Lakeland.
“You've got to push the parameters sometimes, you've got to be aggressive, you've got to be difficult to play against because if you're not and you're too nice, you get nothing. Not just in football, but generally in life, so he's a key player for us.”
McFadden will more than likely start National League North game number 28 when Lynn host Oxford City on Tuesday night - although Lakeland has the strength in depth to change if needs be.
“We've got a great squad mean – the likes of Gold Omotayo, Theo Williams, Freddie Sass and Pat Boyes weren’t even in the 16 (against Hereford), but any of them could come in and start on Tuesday,” said Lakeland.
“And we will need that between now and the end of the season with the volume of games that we've got coming up. If we decide to freshen it up a little bit on Tuesday, then we can do so without weakening the team and that's a real strength of ours.”
It’s a rarity, but Lakeland has a full, fit squad to choose from.
“There's not one player now that we've got whose unfit,” said Lakeland. “Probably Sam (Walker) - he's not trained this week because he had a little bit of soreness in his hamstring so we haven't rushed him.”
Much is being made of the need for attacking reinforcements, but Gold Omotayo was a notable omission against Hereford.
Lakeland said: “Gold's trained, although he had a setback after he came on against Radcliffe where he pulled up in training on the Monday, that's why he wasn't involved last week at Curzon, but he's trained Thursday, Friday.
"So we could have involved him, but we didn't want to because, one, I don't think anybody in the 16 deserved to be left out; two, I don't think he did enough to be in the 16 over the lads that were on the bench and, three, I didn't want to rush him back with him maybe then pulling up after only doing a couple of days training as was the case before the Radcliffe game.”
