Barnet ended their pre-season campaign on Saturday with a 3-1 home defeat at the hands of Peterborough United. Mark Stimson named a somewhat changed side from the Southampton match, with Sam Cox replacing Joe Devera at right back, Clovis Kamdjo partnering Daniel Leach at the back, with Anwar Uddin missing and Mark Marshall coming into the side instead of Ricky Holmes.
Barnet started the match positively with former Swindon winger, Mark Marshall giving the Bees the width that they had lacked against Southampton for all the pretty passing moves. The Bees mixed things up with some nice passing movements from central midfield, and from Jordan Parkes, on the left, and a more direct approach to pick out Steve Kabba and Mark Marshall.
Marshall caused Peterborough quite a few problems in the first half and the Posh had to resort to bringing Marshall down on a few occasions to stop him breaking through. A lovely run in midfield by Mark Byrne and cute ball down the right into the feet of Marshall led to the Bees’ winger crossing into the box but noone was quite able to get on the end of it.
Jordan Parkes was having another fine match at left back and was coping very capably with Mackail-Smith and still had to time to deal with his attacking duties as well. On 26 minutes, on of Parkes surges up field led to a fine cross into the box which, Peterborough’s highly rated keeper, Lewis, was only able to punch clear and Glenn Poole was able to steer the loose ball into the net to put Barnet 1-0 up.
Peterborough put the Bees under a lot of pressure after the Bees’ goal and Leach and Kamdjo did very well to withstand their attacks, while Jake Cole made an outstanding save from point blank range from Aaron McLean.
On 38 minutes, Peterborough were awarded a highly dubious penalty after Glen Southam had cleared another posh effort from under the crossbar. None of the visiting players, or fans, seemed to appeal as Mr. Russell, pointed to the spot and Grant McCann duly put Peterborough level.
Moments later, Marshall was put through into the opposition penalty box and was upended by Lewis and Mr. Russell again pointed to the spot, but Poole’s quite well hit penalty was superbly saved by the England under 21 international keeper.
HT: Bees 1 Posh 1
After a highly entertaining first half, the two teams maintained the level of football after the restart. Danny Dennehy came on early on to replace Parkes with Leach moving across to left back. Leach adapted well and he almost put Barnet back ahead just before the hour with a very sweetly hit drive, following a one-two with Steve Kabba which brought out a fine save from Lewis
Shortly after the usual substitutions took place with the highly promising, Reece Yorke replacing Daniel Leach; Mark Hughes and Charlie Stimson replacing Jarvis and Byrne and Danny Kelly coming on for Kabba. Yorke gave any very assured performance for his age and he looks as though he would be quite capable of stepping into a League Two match should Stimson need to call him up. Dennehy looked quite commanding and assured as well, though it was his poor pass that led to Peterborough’s second goal.
As with the Southampton game, the changes in central midfield meant that the Bees lost a lot of their fluidity and Stimson and Kelly never really caused the Peterborough defence any problems. As a result, the visitors took control of the match and scored twice in the last 10 minutes through Mackail-Smith and Boyd to put something of a false gloss on the result.
Considering that the Bees started without Devera, Dennehy, Uddin and Holmes, all of whom are likely to play at Chesterfield next Saturday, they performed very creditably, though Parkes was certainly missed in the second half. Now all the pre-season matches are over and done with. The real business starts next Saturday at Chesterfield.
Bees 1 Posh 3
Barnet: Cole; Cox, Kamdjo, Leach (Yorke 68), Parkes (Dennehy 46); Marshall, Jarvis (Stimson 76), Southam, Byrne (Hughes 72), Poole; Kabba (Kelly 72)
Peterborough: Lewis, Little, Langmead, Lee, Wesolowski (Rowe 65), McLean, Boyd, Mackail-Smith, McCann, Bennett, Davies (Mendez-Laing).
Att: 547