This lack of goals is getting worrying

With only three away wins to our credit so far this season this game at Barrow was looked on as being one that we maybe could win.  It wasn't.  Our last win on the road came in a 2-0 victory at Kettering back in November with one of the goals scored by Matt Barnes-Homer and that is just who and what we are missing right now.  A natural goalscorer.

His sale to Luton Town looked at the time as a 'good bit of business' but now in retrospect it plainly was not for both parties.  We supposedly made a bit of money from the deal but rumour has it that we haven't actually seen any of it yet.  MBH only plays from the bench and we have Robbie Matthews.  Do me a favour?  He is not a goalscorer in the way that Matty was and never will be.

If it wasn't for a midfielder, Brian Smikle, heading up our scoring charts we would be in a sorry state near the relegation places.  As it is we are safely in mid table and going nowhere, especially in front of goal.

So far this season (with five games remaining) we have put away just fifty eight goals.  Last season we finished up with ninety goals scored.  That's a difference of over thirty goals.

In an effort to replace Barnes-Homer we have tried a couple of loanees in James Lawrie and Adam Boyd but with the former it's not working and with the latter it never was.  Steve Burr is going to have to make a couple or three decent strikers his number one priority.

It also looks like we'll be needing a new captain too with the rumour going round tonight that Chris McPhee was not prepared to travel all the way from Devon to Barrow then also have to do the same again for the Gateshead game on Saturday.  Later on though someone mentioned on the message board that his wife was about to deliver another child soon so it was thought not advisable for Chris to be travelling.  Players really mustn't be arranging these kind of things while the season is in full swing!!

We had no Brian Smikle either but that was down to injury and so we started the game with Lloyd Kerry and Marc Goodfellow starting, the latter against a club he was on loan at earlier in the season.  At the back in place of the bench warming Duane Courtney we had Marcus Bignot making a long overdue full appearance.

The game kicked off.  Four minutes later it was all over.

Following a shot on goal in the first seconds of the game from Simon Wiles, easily saved by Jasbir Singh, the home side followed up with the only goal of the game.  Martin Riley gave away a free kick on the edge of the box and although Andy Bonds kick forced Singh into a save it was only as far as Phil Bolland who sent the ball home.

Following that Barrow would have been expected to turn up the heat a bit but they didn't and seemed content to stick with what they had got.  We also seemed happy to shoot from distance, not something we usually do, but most efforts went well wide of the target except for one from Dean Bennett that struck the bar.

That's how the half ended, basically, with us taking pot shots on goal and Barrow just soaking it all up.

The second period wasn't much better than the first.  We made an early substitution with James Lawrie coming on for Darryl Knights but Lawrie couldn't seem to get into the game so a bit later another change came with David McDermott coming on for Dean Bennett.

Still there wasn't much being created from a Harriers point of view but Barrow did come close to increasing their lead with a shot from Wiles that was well saved by Singh.  Our first attempt on goal in this half came midway through when Marc Goodfellow sent a shot whistling just wide of the top corner then he followed that up minutes later with a lay-off to Jack Byrne but the former Redditch mans fierce shot was well saved by Tim Deasy in the hosts goal.

There then followed a long stoppage to the game after David McDermott, on the field for only a short while, was carried off on a stretcher and then on to hospital with ankle ligament damage.  The strong, some would say crude, tackle by Paul Edwards will now see Maccy D miss the remainder of the season after already missing most of it due to hospitalisation with a stomach illness.

When the game was finally re-started we actually managed to get the ball into the net but Lawries 'goal' was struck off after the referee deemed that he had pushed a Barrow defender.

So that's how it ended for us.  Beaten again on our travels to an early goal that we did not recover from.  Now we have an injury to a young lad that doesn't deserve all the hassle that he's had this season and still that terrible dearth of goals that we just cannot seem to rectify.

Here's hoping for better at Gateshead.

 Goal for Barrow: Bolland 4

REFEREE:

Mr A Halliday Nth Yorkshire