Barnet were robbed of 3 points yesterday at the Hive after having a perfectly good goal disallowed in time added on in a thrilling encounter with top of the table, Cambridge United. Barnet were still without a number of regular first tem players, including Keanu Marsh-Brown who was serving the second of his 3 match ban. Luisma Villa was pushed up into a more attacking role behind Harry Crawford and Andy Yiadom returned to his old right wing role with Anthony Acheampong filling in at right back. Edgar Davids came in for Ahmed Abdulla. George Sykes, back from his loan spell with Bishops Stortford, was on the bench.
Most of the first half hour was extremely tight with neither side really creating much, though Harry Crawford forced a fine save from Maxwell after about 20 minutes. All that was to change though in the space of three minutes. On 29 minutes, Graham Stack played a foolish clearance out to Edgar Davids near the half way line and facing his own goal and he was dispossessed and the Bees’ defence left helpless as the ball was played through to Kwesi Appiah to comfortably slot the ball past Stack to put Cambridge 1-0 ahead.
Having shot themselves in the foot, so to speak, they proceeded to do so again when Elliott Johnson gave a way possession easily in the Barnet half and the defence opened up again for Appiah to double his tally and make it 2-0 to Cambridge. Soon afterwards, the Bees’ defence opened up again but Harrison Dunk’s shot went over the bar.
At this point, Barnet looked like they could get quite a hammering, but out of the blue the game changed. Davids played the ball through to LUISMA VILLA who was outside the penalty area. The Spanish midfield player hit a magnificent curling shot which beat Maxwell all ends up to put the Bees back in the game. Then, on 45 minutes, Davids released Elliott Johnson on the left and his cross eventually found its way to Curtis WESTON who fired home a superb drive from the edge of the penalty area to make the score level.
HT: Bees 2 United 2
Barnet largely dominated the second half and showed their intent by bringing on Sykes for Acheampong just past the hour. Cambridge continued to look dangerous on the break but it was a completely different home side than the one that looked beaten just after the half hour mark. Andy Yiadom gave a storming second half performance and young George Sykes was causing the visitors’ defence problems. At the other end, Stack had to save well when a long range shot beat the defence.
Cambridge keeper, Chris Maxwell, was called upon to make good saves from long range shots from Edgar Davids and Luisma as the Bees looked to turn a 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 win to move into the top five and it looked as though they had done it when following a corner, Jack Saville rose to send a powerful header towards goal only to see the ball cleared off the line. The ball crashed against the bar and fell down and hit Sykes and went into the net. However, the young striker’s celebrations were cut short by a linesman’s flag after the referee had appeared to signal a goal. The ball was ‘deemed’ to have crossed the line before coming back into play and thus ruled out. The Sky highlights show clearly, however, that the ball hit the face of the bar and bounced down before going in off of Sykes. The goal, clearly, should have stood and Barnet were unfairly denied all three points.
However, the home fans can still be very happy about the way the team responded to going two goals down and with so many key players to come back into the side, the season still looks to hold a lot of promise for the Bees who are only one point off of a top five place.
Barnet Mad Bees’ Player of the Match: Luisma Villa
FT: Bees 2 United 2
Barnet: Stack; Acheampong (Sykes 66), Stephens, Saville, Johnson; Yiadom, Weston (Byrne 79) Davids, Cadogan; Luisma Villa; Crawford
Subs Not Used: Jupp, Abdulla, Nurse
Att: 2853