An excellent away win at Southport sees the Bees sitting pretty at the top of the Vanarama Conference.

A superb chipped effort from Lee Cook was followed by an equally impressive curling shot around the defender right into the bottom corner by John Akinde. I wasn’t able to make it up to Southport last weekend, but I heard the ripples of applause from the home fans after that one hit the back of the net.

They appreciated Akinde’s fine finish to give Barnet what proved to be an unassailable two goal lead. Jack Saville came on in the second half to shore up the defence and see the game out.

A 3-0 win at Braintree last year also saw Barnet top the table early on in the season. The trick in 2014/15 will be to maintain the high standards that we have set for the majority of this campaign, probably all of it in fact apart from the first 45 minutes at home to Lincoln. This will be no easy task in a very competitive league, but you can’t complain at the start that we have made.

Equally as important as the free-scoring forwards and wingers has been Barnet’s excellent defensive form. We look a really solid unit at the back at the moment. We’ve gone to places like Chester and Southport and kept clean sheets. That didn’t always look likely last term, especially against the more physical sides in the division.

Pleasing then to see N’Gala, Saville and Stephens look like a team of really strong, solid centre backs. Stack has been commanding in goal and made some crucial saves when games were finely balanced.

Yiadom and Johnson stop the crosses on the wings, whilst also providing an offensive outlet, with Yids already having scored this season. Togwell and Weston shield the defence when necessary.

It’s a real team effort to look as strong defensively as we have so far and great credit to the players and manager for being so.

Here’s hoping we’ll still be top of the table come 5pm on Saturday before putting on a good show live on BT Sport for our trip down to Dover. Come on you Bees!