Harriers suffer a narrow defeat at Barnet

In a week that saw the Harriers scrape into the FA Cup first round with a very questionable pair of performances against Bradford Park Avenue, and also featured a Friday evening bombshell regarding manager Steve Burr, the Carpetmen travelled down to Barnet to overcome adversity in the best possible way - by racking up another three points.

The assistant manager, Gary Whild, named a slightly changed team from Tuesday's match, with Marvin Johnson, Michael Gash, James Dance and Mickey Demetriou coming in to the team and, with conditions wet and windy at kick off, things looked bleak early on for the Harriers as Keanu Marsh-Brown proved why he's highly rated, skipping through the defence and expertly avoiding a Jamie Grimes challenge before blazing his shot off target with only the 'keeper to beat.

Barnet kept up their dominance controlling the possession, putting the red men under pressure and allowing us few chances.  Indeed when we did get a rare breakaway Lee Vaughan signalled what was to come for him, on a poor day where his crosses were wayward, with his first ending up with the Barnet fans behind the goal.

Marsh-Brown then caused outrage amongst the Harriers fans.  Following the Harriers kicking the ball away to allow a Barnet player to receive treatment he shot the subsequent free kick at our goal and forced Danny Lewis into a splendid save when everybody had expected him to pass it back.  He then saw sense and kicked the resulting corner out for a goal kick.

It was another corner that rewarded Barnets' dominance though.  Danny Jackman, being the 'first man', should have done better to stop the ball going past him but the loose ball avoided Josh Gowlings heroic effort and was turned in by Spaniard Luisma Villa in the twenty fifth minute.

This goal woke up the boys in red and the first half then became more competitive.  Kyle Storers twenty five yard strike was parried away from the bottom corner and a Marvin Johnson shot also called 'keeper Graham Stack into action.

Harriers were putting their fair share of crosses into the box and one of them bought about the best chance of the match when Michael Gash found himself clear at the near post but headed up and over, when anything downwards would surely have been a goal.

The second half started evenly enough, with the best chance being a Barnet cross that evaded everybody in the Harriers area and rolled across the face of the goal.  However, Harriers began to put more passes together and put Barnet under pressure for large periods of the half, with Whild and his assistant Steve Guinan responding to this by putting on an extra forward player, Anthony Malbon, in place of Jackman.  Despite their pressure though, there were still few real chances for Harriers.

Johnson did manage to break into the opposition area and went down.  Shouts for a penalty weren't given, but Marvin stayed down for a substantial period and was later stretchered off to be replaced by Joe Lolley.  Lolleys' direct running and shooting forced a good save from the 'keeper, and on another occasion he got into the box but couldn't find the space to finish.

Eight minutes of injury time concluded the game and Barnet rallied in this period, shooting low and hard, the ball was heroically cleared off the line by Grimes before a corner gave Barnet the opportunity to run down the clock by keeping the ball in the corner.

The Harriers got one final chance for an equaliser but a Lolley corner was cleared, with the final action of the day being a stupid red card for goal scorer Villa who, whilst already on a yellow, kicked the ball away deep in injury time following a Kyle Storer foul.

My MotM is Kyle Storer.  Commitment in the challenge, some good passing play, good use of possession and a strong shot which almost found the net.  He led the team well in light of the managerial issues.

 Goal for Barnet: Villa 25

REFEREE:

Mr R Whitton Essex