Paul Caddis is enjoying proving the doubters wrong after being told that 95 per cent of pre-season predictions had his side finishing in the bottom four.

Lynn only secured their National League North survival on the final day of last season and underwent another major squad rebuild during the summer.

But after 12 games of the new campaign, Caddis’s side have emerged as one of the division’s surprise packages, with their attacking football and impressive run of results putting them in the conversation at the top end of the table.

And while the Lynn boss can understand why outsiders expected another season of struggle, he has always believed his squad could compete.

Caddis said: “One of the local Welsh media on Saturday did an interview with myself after the game and had said that 95 per cent of these predictions they put out at the start of the season had us in the bottom four.

“People can say it’s an overachievement, people can say it’s a bubble that’s going to burst, whatever they want, but we had full confidence that we could bring a squad together that could compete.

“At the moment it’s only 12 games we’re competing, but there’s still 30-plus games to go, so there’s still a long, long time to go.”

The Linnets chief revealed he hasn't used those gloomy predictions as motivation inside the dressing room, although he admits there is a certain satisfaction in confounding expectations.

“I’ve never mentioned it, I genuinely haven’t, but it’s quite pleasing,” he said.

“I quite like the fact that people think that and think that we’re obviously in a position not to compete or being really poor again.

“I can understand why people did. We struggled as a club last year, we’d stayed up on the last day, and we’ve had to strip the squad completely again as well.

“Everybody’s entitled to their opinion.”

One of the biggest changes under Caddis has been Lynn’s playing style.

Having adopted a more pragmatic approach to secure survival last season, the manager has encouraged his side to play a more expansive, possession-based game.

And he believes the goalscoring statistics demonstrate that the Linnets are doing far more than simply keeping the ball.

“Last year we had to find a way. I didn’t want to come in and play that way, but we had to find a way to stay in the division and that’s what suited what we had,” he said.

“This year I wanted to change. People maybe think that we have too much possession, but I would argue that and counter that by saying we’re the highest goalscorers in the division.

“We’ve got possession, we’ve got purpose. It’s not a matter of just having the ball for 300 passes and then deciding let’s try and go forward now.

“We’ve scored a lot of goals, we’ve had fives in games, we’ve had threes in games, we’ve scored in every single game this year apart from Chester, so we’re a threat.”

The Linnets face a demanding run of fixtures between now and January, with Hereford, Macclesfield, South Shields, Chester, Morecambe and a Boxing Day meeting with Spalding all on the horizon.

Caddis believes those matches will provide a clearer indication of just how far his side have progressed.

“There are some real big games for us there, but to be spoken amongst them shows you how far we’ve come,” he said.

“I would rather be up the top end and be spoken in those conversations than where we have been previously as a club, down the bottom end and fighting.

“From now until Christmas, I’m going to say the table is probably going to be about 75 to 80 per cent different to what it is now.

“We have to do everything we possibly can to make sure we’re still in a position to try to compete.”