King's Lynn Town 1 Radcliffe 1

Adam Lakeland hit back at the King's Lynn Town fans who booed his players off the pitch.

Two points from three games in the past week have knocked Lynn’s National League North promotion bid – although the one gained on Saturday actually saw them rise to fifth in the table, level on points with third-placed Kidderminster.

Lakeland admitted his team were slow out of the blocks, the visitors going ahead on 10 minutes before Jonny Margetts equalised from the penalty spot on the stroke of half-time.

But the reaction on full-time clearly rankled the Linnets boss.

“I thought it was really harsh of the supporters to boo my team off today and I'm really disappointed with them,” said Lakeland.

“They deserve better than that. That's probably the most noise I heard all game was the boo at the end. And I think that's incredibly harsh and the players deserve better than that.

“I just think it's delusional, booing the team off today.

“I'll get battered, no doubt, for being critical, but 12 months ago when we were having a really bad time, I had 700, 800, 900 people shouting at me. This team's fifth in the league now, and they're doing incredibly well. We've got a young team that's trying and giving everything, so now it's my turn to have a bit of a shout at them.

“I want and expect my team to get more support. I can understand frustration, no problem with that, and I can understand ambition because we all have aspirations to do well, but I think it's incredibly harsh to boo them off today, incredibly harsh.”

Lakeland saved Lynn from relegation last season, rebuilt in the summer, and has them challenging for promotion in the face of some untimely injuries. But the battle for the play-offs is becoming increasingly competitive and Lakeland was clearly frustrated at seeing his side waste chances to take all three points.

“We've got a good team, we've got some really good players, who I demand a lot of," he said. "My job's to just keep squeezing them to get as much out of them as I possibly can, so the buck always stops with me, and I'm completely fine with that.

“But we are demanding a lot of the group. If I look at us as a group in comparison to a lot of the other teams up and around the top end of the division, where generally the managers have been in place for at least a couple of seasons, the majority of their squads have been in place for quite some time. They've got a lot of experienced players, a lot of know-how, lots of players who've maybe had that year-on-year demand of trying to win every week and trying to be top of the league.

“We're learning on the job and I think these players are doing incredibly well to be where we are. But we still want more and we can still get better and we have to get better.

“But my belief and my confidence in what we're doing doesn't wane just because we've only taken two points from the last nine. Of course, there's frustration and disappointment, but we've just got to keep on working hard, go again.”