Work to do for Flowers and Barnet

With so little football going on it’s harder to find the motivation to write a blog, trotting out the same National League disasters and if you don’t include Barnet FC in that last bit then we’re singing from different song sheets.

Almost twelve months on from that last seen game at Woking, the club is unrecognisable. I’m not a naïve person by any stretch of the imagination, this season was always going to be a nadir compared to the previous campaign but I had been expecting to make a better fist of it.

The relentless Saturday/Tuesday combination was in force once again this midweek as the Bees travelled to fellow strugglers Kings Lynn Town which would have closed the gap between the two clubs to three points with a Barnet win. Town’s financial problems are no secret and without news of further funding coming their way after this weekend’s home game with Weymouth they are unlikely to kick another ball in anger this season.

After Saturday’s flat and leggy performance against Woking, Tim Flowers would have been expecting an improved performance against a side one place better off than his team in the table but with a win at The Hive earlier in the season already in the bag.

Streaming away games for a fan has been hit and miss from what I read across message boards for the National League, indeed Barnet have had their fair share at the beginning of the season, but credit to the club on that side of things they have got it right.

Now we’re in February I really expect these things to work a lot more smoothly as we’re months into the season not games and for this stream to cut out after about five minutes and not be able to access it for another 15 minutes is pretty poor, no apology given either so I can only assume the home club had no idea or didn’t care. I’ll give them the tiny bit of credit for replying to my Twitter message pretty quickly.

Whilst unable to watch the action, the home side scored twice courtesy of ex-Bee Michael Gash, I’d love to be able to tell you if they were well in the ascendancy or poor defending but alas I couldn’t see, maybe a good thing in all respects.

I can only assume as well from tweets by fellow Bees fans that Jack Connors struggled at left back for match fitness having not been involved on the pitch under Flowers so far and was substituted for Alex McQueen straight after the second goal, just as my stream came back to life.

The Bees finally found their way onto the scoresheet just before the half hour mark, Scott Loach’s long goal kick put JJ Hooper in behind the Lynn defence and he halved the deficit. That though was as good as it got for Barnet for the remainder of the game.

Ten minutes later a superb save from Loach prevented Gash from completing a first half hat-trick, the home side going into the interval 2-1 in front, a danger from every set piece they had and Barnet looking like lost rabbits in headlights every time the ball came into the box.

The Linnets should have extended their lead through Sonny Carey five minutes after the re-start, his shot cannoning off the bar and away to safety. Just after the hour mark the game was effectively put out of reach for the Bees as Cameron King finished off a fine move after good work from Adam Marriott.

Then came the icing on the cake for the home side in the final five minutes as Dayle Southwell and Marriott scored within a minute of each other and leave last Tuesday’s win over Halifax as an almost long distant memory.

The win lifted the Linnets out of the bottom three replaced by Weymouth who have a seven point cushion to Barnet, the Bees with two games in hand but the way performances are starting to pan out again that’s pretty hollow.

I’ll admit I didn’t really watch much of the second half, I spent more time following the angry tweets on Twitter from Bees fans and answering messages, it enthralled me that much, pretty much similar when writing this it’s losing its motivation.

Flowers after the game bemoaned the restarts we don’t contest but the sessions are there in training so what is the problem? Are the players not good enough? Mentally can they not take things from one pitch to another? Is it a combination of both or is it something else?

I would say my own opinion is that of a combination of both. No disrespect to those pulling on the shirt, but clearly some cannot compete at this level, they’re getting found out every week. It took Eastleigh just forty-five minutes in the opening game of the season to work out how to beat us and almost everyone has since.

It’s alarming to see how some of last season’s good players have regressed so much this year, is it down to the players around them now compared to last year, are they not able to carry out the instructions wanted because they are mentally not tuned into things?

Having to rely on the FA ratification of the National League vote to avoid relegation is cheap, desperate, but the ways things are going on the pitch it’s the only saving grace.

Not to take anything away from either Woking or Kings Lynn, but full time professionals should be putting in a better shift than this, the cohesion should be tighter.

Tuesday night was the ninth time in 21 league games the Bees had conceded at least three times in a game, any Hartlepool fans reading this must be placing a bet of themselves scoring at least three, what price then a thumping in front of the BT Sport cameras this coming weekend……..