Barnet travel to promotion chasing Bury tomorrow afternoon, following an eventful week which has seen many ups and downs. Last Saturday, the Bees drew level on points with Burton Albion after a brave 2-1 home win over Crewe Alexandra, which saw them win back to back league wins for the first time in almost two years and took the Bees points haul under Martin Allen to 7 points in 3 games. However, Monday saw the shock departure of Allen to Notts County amidst much anger from the Barnet fans.
Barnet chairman, Tony Kleanthous decided not to drastically change the managerial situation following Allen’s departure and assistant Guilaino Grazioli took over the role of caretaker manger with former club captain, Anwar Uddin becoming Graz’s assistant. The next evening saw the Bees claim the Herts Senior Cup by beating Stevenage 2-1 with both goals coming from Charlie Stimson. The Barnet side was under the care of Uddin, Roy Carroll and Gary Phillips as Graz had travelled north to watch Bury play at home against Burton in the league. The match turned out to be almost as eventful as Barnet’s week with two Bury players, Damien Mozika and Efe Sodje both being red carded. Burton midfield player, Sam Winnall was also sent off in a match which Bury won 1-0 to go second in the table, five points above fourth placed Shrewsbury Town. Meanwhile, the Brewers remain above Barnet in 22nd place but only by the slimmest of goal differences, while they now have only one game in hand on the Bees having hardly making the most of a situation where, at one point, they had five games in hand on Barnet and many other teams down near the bottom of the table.
Barnet will be hoping to make it four games unbeaten tomorrow but will still be without mark Hughes who is serving a two match suspension for receiving 10 yellow cards for the season and on loan keeper, Sam Walker misses out after being sent off late in the game last Saturday after receiving two yellow cards for what were really quite trivial offences. Liam O’Brien will come in for Walker and it is likely that the team will otherwise stay unchanged with Tommy Fraser continuing in place of Hughes, though Sam Cox’s fine performance against Stevenage on Tuesday, where he won the man of the match award, could bring him into contention for a starting place. However, the starting line up should look something like this:
O’Brien
Sterling Devera Leach Parsons
Deering Fraser Byrne Marshall
Kabba McLeod
In the other matches down near the bottom of League Two, Burton are at home to Cheltenham who, like the Brewers, have been in freefall but have probably collected enough points not to worry too match about relegation; Lincoln who have dropped down the table again following five consecutive defeats are away at Crewe; Hereford travel to play-off challengers, Rotherham who have just appointed former Brentford manager Andy Scott, while Northampton without a win in 15 league matches face a very difficult trip to promotion chasing, Wycombe. Bottom club, Stockport travel to enough promotion chasing club, Shrewsbury Town. The last part of the season will probably see many twists and turns and it is likely that by tomorrow evening the bottom of the League Two table will look just as muddied as it does now. Hopefully, the Bees will have moved up a place or two. Come on you Bees!!!