Barnet First Team Coach Kevin Nugent was pleased with his side’s performance against Portsmouth, but expressed his disappointment that the Bees couldn’t hold on for all three points. 

Speaking after the match Kevin said: 

“I thought it was exciting game. 

“In the second half it felt like one of those matches where a mistake was going to win it for someone, and I was hoping it wasn’t going to come from us. 

“We scored a fantastic goal and I’m disappointed that we didn’t win it. 

“We had a few chances in the first half – I was hoping that we could hang on but we couldn’t. 

“Their equaliser was a absolutely fantastic strike, so you’ve got to give the lad from Portsmouth credit for that.

“But from a coach’s point of view there were things we could have done to stop it. 

“I’ve got to give the players a lot of credit today though – they did a 12 hour round trip to Morecambe during the week.

“They got in at 4am and then had training later in the week, but the players put in such a shift today. 

“I’m really pleased with them, despite being disappointed we didn’t hang on. 

“There’s some real raw talent in this squad, there just needs to be a little bit of tinkering in terms of how we’re going to play. 

“I’m definitely excited about some of things that I saw today. 

“I couldn’t isolate just one player, I thought that loads of them put in a shift today. 

“We didn’t have too much time to work on things during the week – Thursday was a very light day because of that Morecambe trip, and we did a little bit of work yesterday. 

“So we’ll improve on bits and pieces, but everyone performed this afternoon.

“We had 15 games to go before today, and we were treating this as our most important match ahead of the game. 

“Our next match against Cambridge United now becomes our most important game. 

“I’m not looking at mini-leagues or anything like that, I’m just looking at the next fixture. 

“If we perform against Cambridge like we did against Portsmouth – who are one of the best teams in the league – and for the rest of our remaining matches, then we’ll have a chance of achieving something this season.”