Jason Puncheon returned to the Bees line up with Adam Birchall dropping to the bench against high flying, high spending Peterborough United at London Road today.
Barnet set out their stall with a 4-5-1 formation that was intent on thwarting and denying opportunities for the expensively assembled Posh outfit to capitalise on. Manager Paul Fairclough had felt that during the match, when his team managed to break out and carve out a chance it'd be crucial that it be taken.
This opportunity duly fell to Kieron St. Aimie mid way through the second half. On a counter attack Puncheon took the ball from a midfield position combined with Cliff Akurang who fed the ball through to St. Aimie, but the recent £400k new signing Joe Lewis did exceptionally well to deny the visitors a lead and the tall keeper pushed the ball wide.
It must be acknowledged that for the bulk of the match the home side were the more dominant, the more likely to score, but defensively Barnet were mostly composed and sound. However Ismail Yakubu had needed to be on his mettle to make two last gasp goal line clearances. And Beckwith too, made several very accomplished saves.
Albert Adomah, following on from his fine display in midweek against Brentford, did take the game to Posh on occasions and was willing to run at speed, attacking defenders, cut inside and try his luck with efforts from distance.
The first half ended with the Posh having the slight edge, but Barnet at this stage could look forward with some justification at the possibility of taking something from the game.
Peterborough being unable to establish a lead after some twenty minutes of much second half huffing and puffing, introduced from the bench substitute Liam Hatch as the home side deployed a three prong strike force. Posh now become one dimensional in that long raking passes were delivered from left to right for Hatch to leap, head or flick on, hoping that the quick, neat and nimble Aaron Mclean or Mackail-Smith would pick up the crumbs.
Within ten minutes of Hatch replacing midfielder Chris Welpdale the Posh had taken the lead. Playing a neat one-two with Mclean, Hatch released a shot from outside the penalty area that Beckwith later described as "going twenty yards wide" only for it to take a wicked and cruel deflection off Yakubu and into the Barnet net, leaving the Bees keeper stranded.
Hatch, clearly under the impression the he had given Peterborough the lead, and seemingly unaware that it is now de rigueur not to over zealously celebrate goals against former clubs, fairly leaped and jumped for joy. In his defence, perhaps being reduced at Peterborough to a number of brief cameo performances had had him champing at the bit.
This goal was the be the only one of the game and the victory was sufficient to push the Posh into the automatic promotion positions.
Since Barnet defeated Hereford United at Edgar Street the Bees have now lost four consecutive fixtures, each one being lost by a single goal margin. Whilst there are no easy fixtures in this division, some are clearly more difficult than others and next week the Bees are home to promotion favourites MK Dons. Could Barnet's first double of the season possibly be achieved against a team that have for so long been able to look down on all their rivals from their lofty perch as table toppers?
David Bloomfield
