King’s Lynn Town 2 Buxton 0

Adam Lakeland believes he witnessed King’s Lynn Town’s best performance since he took the reins just over a year ago.

Two excellent goals earned the points in a dominant victory from a striker-less starting XI the Linnets boss admitted was something of an experiment.

Victory keeps Lynn bang in the mix at the top of National League North, but it was the manner in which it was achieved that pleased Lakeland.

“I’d maybe go as far as to say that's arguably one of the best performances since me and (assistant) Sam (Walker) came here,” he said. “I just think it showed everything - we were solid, we were organised, made it really difficult for a good footballing team to create any real good chances, but we looked a threat throughout the game, we had good spells of possession. I thought the way we worked all of our restarts, maybe with the exception of the corners, was really pleasing, so we've just got to keep on working hard and getting better at what we do.”

The corresponding fixture last season was Lakeland’s first game in charge of the Linnets and ended in a 3-1 defeat.

He said: “Sam actually said to me on the touch line, ‘if you think back just over 12 months ago, Buxton here was our first game’ and the difference from what we looked and resembled then to what we have now is night and day. I'm really pleased for the players today because they work so hard every single day in training and it's really pleasing when you then go and see the rewards through performances like that.”

Lakeland dropped striker Gold Omotayo to the bench, leaving his starting line-up without a recognised goal scorer. Josh Hmami played a more advanced role, which paid off when he opened the scoring.

“I just got a feeling through the week that we maybe needed to look at something a little bit different up there today, a little bit experimental, and I thought he (Hmami) was absolutely magnificent the way that he pressed the ball, the way that he kept them down one side of the pitch wherever he could, just to make it easier for us to recover possession. Running in behind, holding the ball up, being competitive, scoring - just a brilliant performance by him, but to be fair, I thought to a man everybody was really good today.”

Ross Crane was a danger down the left while on the other side, Fin Barnes had his best outing since joining the club earlier in the season.

In between them, Hmami, Josh McCammon and Tommy Hughes were all man of the match candidates, along with Cody Johnson, just behind them, who covered every blade of the grass.

The goals came within four minutes of each other and were both straight out of the top drawer: Hughes’ long diagonal to the right found Dylan Crowe whose low cross skidded across the area where Crane drove it into an empty net.

Goal number two started on the right, Barnes leaving white-shirted Bucks in his slipstream before cutting the ball back for Hmami to smash home off the right post.

“The goals were just brilliant and again, it's things that we do all the time, just constantly running our patterns, crossing, finishing,” said Lakeland. “But I thought that the goals were great: good switch of play from Tommy on the first one, outrageous pass, great cross and then Ross Crane is there to score.

“And then obviously the second one it started from a free-kick where we had that confidence to just take it short and stay on the ball again, Fin Barnes then comes inside and good composure by Josh Hmami - two really good goals.”

King’s Lynn Town: Boyes, Crowe, Wilson, McFadden, Taylor (C), Johnson, McCammon, Hughes, Crane (Omotayo 90), Hmami (Ronan 85), Barnes (Williams 77). Subs not used: Coulson, Walker.

Goals: Crane 35, Hmami 39

Buxton: Grant, Mann, Stobbs, De Girolamo (Tomlinson 82), Elliott, Sault, Coleman, White, Ravenhill (Leigh 58), Popoola, Burton. Subs not used: Cooper, Fitzhugh, Tomlinson, Mantle.

Att: 979