Peterborough Sports King's Lynn Town 1

Adam Lakeland refused to make excuses after the Linnets’ no-show in the A47 derby.

An equaliser early in the second half simply papered over the cracks of a poor performance against a Peterborough Sports side superbly marshalled by ex-Linnet Michael Gash.

Lynn had four key players – defenders Kyle McFadden and Freddie Sass and strikers Jonny Margetts and Gold Omotayo – missing, but no one stepped into the breach. The result was a limp performance in front of a huge travelling army of fans.

Paul Jones saved an early penalty before Eliot Putnam put Sports ahead on the half-hour mark. Kian Ronan levelled soon after the break, but parity lasted just 10 minutes , with ex-Linnet Michael Gyasi scoring from the penalty spot before Max Booth made it 3-1.

“They deserved to win,” said Lakeland, whose side slipped one place to fifth, four points off top spot.

“Sometimes you’ve got to hold your hands up and admit that. They're a good side, hard to play against, they've had a lot of good results recently. Two strikers up the top – mobile, quick, willing, just pose a threat right throughout the game and obviously they are very organised, very experienced.

“It’s not an easy place to come. We knew it was going to be a tough game. Probably from our side, just disappointed that we didn't show enough composure and quality, especially in the first half, to try and implement the things that we'd looked at coming into this game, the ways that we felt we could cause them problems with the personnel we have. We didn't work those situations anywhere near enough.

“Came out second half, scored early and we were looking like we were getting stronger and then we give away the ball in their half, they play a ball up the inside of Tom (Wilson), they cut inside and then we obviously dangle a leg give away penalty and that  second goal has killed it because it's just swung the advantage right back to them. They're able to manage the speed of the game, tempo of the game, which obviously was a lot slower than what we wanted it to be.

“Third goal’s a really poor goal, but we're stretched and we're trying to score, we're trying to push and you leave them more space and they capitalised on it.

“So no complaints with the result - obviously disappointed with our performance and obviously losing games we're never happy to do that. Coming into today, we've lost one in 10. that was away at Scunthorpe and I'm not going to stand here and batter the players either because we're having a good season. It's a bad result, it's a bad day, but we've got another game Tuesday, which we've got to try and win.”

The frustration for Lakeland was clear – that the planning and preparation went to waste.

“We don’t just make it up, we always have a method and a reason behind every decision and choice that we make,” said the Lynn boss. “I trust the players to go and implement it and execute it. I don't think we did that anywhere near enough, particularly in the first half. But I'm certainly not going to stand here and make excuses because we've got four big players missing.

"The players we've put on the pitch today and the lads who have come off the bench are still more than capable of winning games of football at this level as we've showed all season.

"We have been looking to bring players in, we've inquired about a few, we've missed out on a few. But I'm not just going to go rushing in and bringing dross in, because that put us in a relegation fight last year when we got our recruitment wrong. So obviously there’ll be probably frustration today from our magnificent support that we had, with maybe how we set up or lack of maybe movement of incomings at the top end of the pitch, but it's not through a lack of effort, it's more through a more calculated methodical approach to making sure that we get our recruitment right."