Paddy Davitt King's Lynn boss Keith Webb delivered an early Christmas present on the eve of today's Blue Square North home test against Burscough. Young defensive duo Luke Graham and Bradley Thomas are poised to extend their loan stays at The Walks as Webb bids to mould a squad capable of launching an all out New Year play-off push.

Paddy Davitt

King's Lynn boss Keith Webb delivered an early Christmas present on the eve of today's Blue Square North home test against Burscough.

Young defensive duo Luke Graham and Bradley Thomas are poised to extend their loan stays at The Walks as Webb bids to mould a squad capable of launching an all out New Year play-off push.

Kettering defender Graham was due to return to the Blue Square Premier title chasers on January 5 while Thomas' initial loan move from Crawley ends this month.

“I've had a chat with both of them and I'm confident of keeping them,” he said. “Both have indicated they would like to stay so we just need to sit down and finalise it with all parties.

“I'm always looking at the whole squad we have here but at the end of the day it's down to the boys. They have to go out and produce results otherwise I must review the situation and we'll continue to do so.”

Thomas returned from a troublesome Achilles injury during the second half of Lynn's 4-3 FA Trophy exit at Workington last weekend. Webb accepts Lynn's recent goals against record is inevitably a hot topic for debate.

“Of course people will be looking at that,” he said. “We've conceded four goals at Workington so people will look at and see we are not keeping clean sheets and blame it on a poor defence. I don't think that is the case.

“Some of them are down to the back four but it's about the whole team - players making mistakes, giving the ball away, losing our shape and organisation. It's about controlling games.

“I think if you analyse it last season we were making one or two mistakes but we probably got away withit because in this league you get punished. The players have to take responsibility but you can do all the talking you want.

“I don't want to make a big issue of it because then it becomes a mental thing and people are expecting the worst to happen.”

Webb's efforts to iron out Lynn's defensive frailties on the training pitch this week were hit by a flu bug. Midfielder Mark Camm is definitely ruled out, while Simon Weaver and Scott Howie are also struggling. Ben Chapman (shoulder) returns after missing the FA Trophy defeat and Andrew Fisk is also drafted back into the match day squad. Mark Peters (knee) will take part in the warm up but Webb is targeting a Boxing Day comeback against Gainsborough Trinity. Charlie Defty is on Ridgeons reserve duty.

Webb promises Lynn will show relegation-threatened Burscough plenty of respect.

“They've had an up and down season,” he said. “A new manager has come in recently and like a lot of sides in our division they are better on the road. You can go away, set up to be solid, and hit teams on the counter attack so we have to be aware of that.

“This is a busy period coming up and it would be nice to take a win into it and set us up for Gainsborough. The boys have bounced back from defeat in the past and I expect us to show that again.”

Burscough arrive at The Walks on the back of a league win at Redditch and a battling midweek FA Trophy exit at Blue Square Premier play-off hopefuls Kidderminster. The Lancastrians' boss Andy Mutch is confident his men can avoid a relegation battle.

“I have always believed that we can start moving up the table and I am not worried about it,” he said. “We will start picking up points even though we have a tough Christmas period where nobody is expecting us to get anything.

“The players are starting to understand that they have the ability and as long as we apply it we will do well. There is real competition for places now, which is healthy and they are continuing to put the work in.

“King's Lynn is a strong, physical side. It is a long journey so there are lots of reasons why things might not go our way, but we have to make it happen.”

t Read Mark Hearle's exclusive column with all the news from behind the scenes at the Linnets every Thursday only on edp24.co.uk/kingslynn