Barnet manager Martin Allen was a happy man following his side’s emphatic 5-0 on the opening day of the season away to Chester.
Speaking after the game, he praised all aspects of the Bees’ performance which sees them sitting on top of the Vanarama Conference after the first weekend:
“It must be said today we did play very, very well. All of our players were right on their game. I came up here about ten days ago to watch them play Tranmere and I saw a fantastic Chester team that were much better than Tranmere on the night.
“I warned all of our players that they had to be at their best to get anything here and my god, we tackled, we were courageous with the ball and we played great football.
“I don’t think that the results of our pre-season games have truly reflected the quality of performance of a lot of our players and today it all came right.
“Every shot that we hit went in, the defending right the way through the team from the front, and the attacking play was all very good. We’ve got some players that can win us games and they did that today.”
The manager was particularly pleased with the result given the limited preparations that the team had for the game:
“You’ve also got to throw into it today that we only got here 35 minutes before kick-off. We were stuck on the bus for almost five hours because of a crash on the motorway. But they didn’t moan, they didn’t complain, we had a ten minute warm-up and then we went out and played extremely well.
“You certainly wouldn’t have known that we only turned up half an hour before. A lot of that credit has got to go to the staff behind the scenes that organised the dressing room quickly and made no fuss. I think we’re all moving in the right direction.”
However, the manager was quick to point out that the team can get even better, and admitted that he wasn’t completely satisfied at half-time despite the team being three goals up:
“We got a bit sloppy when it was 3-0 and I think it’s fair to say that I went in and had a moan at half-time. I wasn’t happy.
“We needed to do more. We didn’t keep the ball well enough and we weren’t playing it quick enough or simple enough.
“When you’re playing against ten men you need to keep possession and keep moving the ball to wear the opposition down and that’s what we did second half and that’s why those extra goals came.”
Despite seeing his side sitting pretty at the top of the league after just one game, Martin insisted that he is refusing to get carried away, and knows that there is a long way to go yet, starting with Bristol Rovers’ visit to The Hive on Tuesday night:
“I suppose it’s nice for the supporters and I do hope now that all the Barnet supporters are really happy, but we’ve already started work for Tuesday. The only thing we’ve spoken about is to just go and win as many games as possible and see where we end up.
“We’ve got two games this week against Bristol Rovers and Lincoln City to come and now we’ve got to make the next step. You only get three points for this win today; you don’t get any more than that. Now we have to take it to the next game.”
