Gary: Lyndon will get to the Premier League – one way or another!
Lyndon Dykes found himself either on the left-wing or left on the bench at Queen of the South just five years ago.
Gary Naysmith, his manager in Dumfries at the time, started shaping a brighter future for the Australian-born striker, and the now Edinburgh City boss says the striker must aim to cap a remarkable rise by reaching the Premier League this summer.
There are two routes to the English elite for Dykes.
His goals have helped Mark Warburton’s surprise Championship challengers, Queens Park Rangers, move into the play-off places.
And Naysmith, pictured right, believes the
2 6 - y e a r - o l d ’s skill- set is so unique that he should already be a signing target for established Premier League outfits.
Dykes has scored seven times this season for QPR, and in a recordequalling four games-in-a-row for Scotland.
He missed most of November and December with injury, but got off the mark for 2022 against Rotherham to book a FA Cup Fourth Round tie at Peterborough.
Now Naysmith has implored Dykes to launch his career to the next level in a year he hopes can climax in a World Cup Finals.
“No way is Lyndon at his ceiling,” said Naysmith. “Far from it.
“Let’s say he gets a realistic target of 15 goals in the Championship. Then there will be teams looking at him.
“There are not many 6ft 3in strikers who have got his hold- up play, his fitness, his pace, and who can score that number of goals.
“So he’s got to look to keep pushing now, and has got to try to get into the Premier League.
“I’m not saying he will get there, but that’s got to be his aim.”
Naysmith recalls a shy Dykes cutting an awkward figure on the left- side of midfield when he took over at Palmerston.
Now he’s gone from untapped talent to one of the big noises in Steve Clarke’s squad.
Thanks to his goals, Scotland are on the brink of following up Euro 2020 by qualifying for Qatar 2022.
Naysmith said: “If someone said when we took over in December, 2016, that in five years he’d go from left wing to national team striker, I’d have said: ‘Wow!’.
“I don’t think anyone knew what Lyndon had within him. I didn’t. Even after working with him for a while, I didn’t know his level.
“I saw a raw lad with good intentions, always willing to learn. But at left midfield, he wasn’t tracking back.
“It wasn’t that he was lazy. He just didn’t know what was expected of him all the time.
“We realised he was wasted out there. If you couldn’t get the ball to him, you weren’t using his physical attributes.
“So we shifted him central as a No. 10 behind Stephen Dobbie, and he never looked back.
“You’ve then got to give David Martindale at Livingston credit because he made him a target man.
“And since moving to QPR, Lyndon has taken that part of his game up another notch.”