AFC Wimbledon boss Neal Ardley has hinted that new signing Lyle Taylor could line up in a three-pronged attack on the League Two title alongside Tom Elliott and Adebayo Akinfenwa.

Taylor fired his way into the fans’ good books with a 12-minute debut hat-trick in a 3-1 win at Basingstoke on Tuesday night, having come on as a second half substitute.

The former Falkirk and Sheffield United striker, who only put pen to paper on a two-year deal on Tuesday morning, is likely to play a bigger role in Saturday’s friendly against Millwall at the CRRS.

Despite standing more than six feet tall, Taylor offers Ardley a different option to Elliott and the Beast, but that is not to say all three will not be playing together.

Ardley said: “He’s about 6ft 2in, but he’s not that sort of striker. He’s very quick, natural and has good movement.

“When we decided what we wanted up front this season, knew we wanted pace and power.

“We also wanted another big and strong striker, in case Bayo had to come off or needed resting, and Tom can do all of the above.

“Lyle is different to the two of them – he’s more like Matt Tubbs, he likes to play on the shoulder, sniff out and gamble on opportunities that might arise, and we need that as well.”

When pushed on whether all three would play at the same time, Ardley added: “I have signed them all to play. That’s all I’ll say.”

The win over Basingstoke looked unlikely after the hosts took the lead and with the Dons not creating any clear-cut chances.

However, Ardley made eight changes and Taylor was not the only to have an impact on the game’s direction.

The boss said: “We had not made too many in-roads because Basingstoke had been very resilient in the way they defended.

“For an hour we had not got a grip of anything – we put a lot of crosses in, but did not look like scoring.

“To be fair to all the players who came on, they all upped the tempo of the game and because of that we got on the front foot.

“Tom [Elliott], Lyle and Sean [Rigg], Jake [Reeves] and Jon [Meades] turned the game on its head.

He added: “The beauty is we had three one-on-ones in the first half – two fell to Ade Azeez – and we did not take them.

“And then Lyle came on and within 10 minutes he’s made runs, got into positions and taken good chances.

Surrey Comet:

Game-changer: New signing Tom Elliott, right, in action against Watford last weekend

“Lyle’s performance confirmed the reasons why I signed him, and I am very confident he will score goals for us this season.”

Taylor’s appearance at Basingstoke lasted 30 minutes, but Ardley says he will more time this weekend as they ease him into the Dons set up.

He said: “We have to get him up to speed, we’re not going to rush him. He’s got to move stuff down from Sheffield way, and it’s been a big week – all of a sudden he’s signed, he’s down, he’s back up to get some more stuff.

“We’ll increase it gradually, maybe 45 minutes on Saturday and 60 minutes in Spain, then 90 towards the back end, and that should just about tune him up.”