Review of season 2007-08

Barnet entered February in good shape with two wins and a draw in their three league games in January, all away to clubs with promotion ambitions. However, everything fell apart in February, starting with the home game against Morecambe where Barnet went down 1-0 after giving an insipid and disappointing performance. The following Saturday they were very unlucky to go down 1-0 away at Darlington. Josh Wright missed a penalty and the Bees had the better of the game and a number of chances were missed.

The defeat at home to Brentford made it three defeats on the spin as Barnet started to worryingly tumble down the table. Two goals from Glen Poole were too much for Barnet, who started off at a blistering pace and could have been 3-0 up by half time, but failed to take their chances. A late Adam Birchall goal was not enough to rescue a point for the home side.

A fourth defeat in a row followed at Peterborough where, almost inevitably, it was Liam hatch that scored the only goal of the game to give his new club the three points and the following Saturday, the Bees went down 2-0 at home to leaders, MK Dons with Michael Leary being sent off for elbowing an opponent. That made it 5 defeats in 5 games in February and no points for the Bees.

By the time Barnet met Shrewsbury Town on March the 1^st, the Bees had slipped to 19^th, only 6 points above next to bottom club, Mansfield Town, though Barnet did have two games in hand. In a month they had gone from a side looking to make a push for the play-offs to relegation candidates and things looked bleak as Shrewsbury took an early lead. Barnet couldn't buy a goal at this stage. New striker, Cliff Akurang had played 11 games and had still not scored. By full time all the frustration had been blown away as Barnet had won 4-1 with two goals apiece for Akurang and Albert Adomah. Cliff Akurang equalised when he poked home a Jason puncheon cross for his first Barnet gaol and then Albert Adomah scored twice to put the Bees 3-1 up at half time. The first was a storming run from just inside the Shrewsbury half that took him into the penalty area where he neatly placed it past the keeper. His second was even better. Taking the ball on the edge of the penalty area, he went round two players before blasting the ball high into the net. Akurang finished the scoring in the second half finishing off another Puncheon cross.

However, things then took a turn for the worse again. Three days later, Jason Puncheon was sent off against Peterborough at Underhill for kicking the ball at a linesman as Barnet lost 2-0 at home. A furious Paul Fairclough displayed his anger about the number of red cards that Barnet had received this season. Puncheon's sending off made it 10 red cards for the season.

A goalless draw at Notts County and an awful 4-1 defeat at hoodoo club, Grimsby Town left Barnet in 20^th place by the time they met Chester at home. However a fine 3-1 win lifted everyone at the club. An opportunist goal from Albert Adomah put the Bees ahead and two more goals for a resurgent Cliff Akurang won the points for Barnet. The match also saw the debut of 18 year old full back, Jordan Parkes, on loan from Watford.

The following Saturday, Barnet gave one of their best performances of the season as they hammered Lincoln City 5-2 at Underhill. It was the first time that Barnet had taken a point against the Imps since returning to the league in 2005 as Lincoln had won all the other 5 meetings. Two goals for Adam Birchall, a penalty scored by Albert Adomah and a goal apiece for Anthony Thomas and Max Porter, his first for the club, gave Barnet their biggest win of the season even if they did slacken off at the end as former Barnet trialist, Ben Wright grabbed two late goals for Lincoln.

A lacklustre 3-0 defeat at Macclesfield Town on Easter Monday brought the Bees back down to earth but they returned to their winning ways on the Saturday with a 3-2 home win over bottom club, Wrexham, their third successive home win. It also gave them their first double of the season, having won 2-0 at Wrexham back in October. Ismail Yakubu, Anthony Thomas, with a stunning overhead kick and Nicky Nicolau scored for the Bees.

At the end of March things were looking a bit rosier again for the club. Four wins and a draw in March meant 13 points in 8 games, a big improvement on February. Barnet had climbed back up to 16^th in the table and were just two points short of the magical 50 points, usually deemed enough for safety. Besides, they wee now 14 points clear of 23^rd placed Mansfield.

Peterborough, MK Dons and Hereford United were in the three automatic promotion places while Mansfield Town and Wrexham were rooted to the bottom in the relegation zone.