Martin Allen admitted that Barnet had been made to pay for not taking their chances after the Bees were narrowly edged out 1-0 against Wrexham on Saturday at the Racecourse Ground.

Speaking after the game, the manager reflected on a close game that was decided on some pivotal moments:

“I thought that they played very well during the first half – they were better than us. In the second half I thought that we were very unlucky. We had numerous chances and opportunities but they just didn’t go in today, when through the year they have gone in.

“But the Wrexham boys fought for their club and put their bodies on the line, like they did at our ground when they beat us earlier in the season.

“They rode their luck and there were a couple of decisions that went against us today which I thought were questionable but if the chances don’t go in then you don’t win the game.

“It was a brilliant save for Luisma’s free kick. The last ten minutes of the first half as well we had another couple of good chances but they didn’t go in. Today I’ve got to say that I thought that they gave everything that they’ve got but it just wasn’t enough.

“The one thing that you can’t ever question with our players is their attitude but we did need to tweak it to improve in certain areas of the pitch and I think that we certainly did that in the second half.”

Barnet were reduced to ten men shortly before the hour mark when John Akinde was shown a second yellow card for simulation, although Martin refused to criticise referee Ian Hussin over the decision that had clearly split opinion:

“John has said that he got tripped. We’ve seen that numerous times. I thought he had got tripped and the Wrexham subs thought that he had got tripped. But the referee didn’t see it that way so we have to accept and respect his decision and deal with it.

“It did make it difficult. But Michael Gash has been outstanding in training, he has been knocking the goals in and has shown a great attitude so he is already pushing for a starting place so I suppose now with John suspended then Gash is going to play.”

However, Martin was refusing to get too downbeat after the defeat and instead urged his players to bounce straight back next weekend when fourth-placed Grimsby Town come to The Hive:

“We just have to roll our sleeves up, get ourselves back down south and hope and pray that none of our supporters have been involved in those crashes on the motorway coming up north this morning, and get ourselves ready for our next game.

“Every game that we play is a big game. It has been a big game since the first day of the season when we started off away from home against Chester.

“Every game is worth three points and in the job that we do it is very important that you keep it all in perspective, take a defeat on the chin, learn from it and move onto the next one.

“I have always maintained that we won’t pop the champagne when we win and we won’t pop the pills when we lose. We will brush ourselves down, we will deal with it and we will try and learn from it and go onto the Grimsby game next week.”