Barnet 4 City 1
“You’ll be back again next year.”
A taunt from the home fans that will have sent a shudder through anyone unfortunate enough to have witnessed City’s capitulation.
This was supposed to be an away banker; three points earmarked towards closing the gap on the automatic promotion places.
You had more chance of guessing the winning lottery numbers than correctly forecasting this scoreline. It was a result totally out of left field.
One team had won only once in 21 attempts, with just one home victory all season. The other had lost only one of their last 11, not letting in a goal for more than six hours.
So who says football can be too predictable at times?
For the Man Uniteds of the world, maybe, but it’s not like that in League Two.
Nobody was more shocked and stunned than Stuart McCall. The ink freshly dried on his new two-year contract, he could not have envisioned a follow-up performance like this in his worst nightmares.
But the City boss has been in the game long enough to know that freak results do occur, a painful one-off. He is determined to treat Saturday’s humiliation as just that.
“I’ve had it at Rangers and Everton as a player,” he said. “I remember getting whacked at home by St Mirren 3-0 once – nobody saw that one coming and at the time it feels like a disaster.
“It’s hard to think why it happens but why do England get bowled out for 51 and then get 500 against the same team the other day?
“These results do happen in sport. That’s still no excuse but you can’t change it, only make sure it doesn’t happen again.
“We’ll all stand up and take the blame for the performance and now it’s about how we react. We can’t change the result – although we’d love to – so we move on and make sure we are right again at Notts County.
“How I’m feeling now is on a par with the Huddersfield game but we bounced back from that and I’m looking for us to do the same.”
Appropriately, the game was sponsored by a local waste disposal firm. Because, from the view of the 701 travelling Yorkshiremen watching in horror along the infamous Underhill slope, it was utter garbage.
For 90 minutes, the tables were turned. Barnet looked the side eyeing a leap into the top three; City the thread-bare outfit clinging nervously above the relegation drop zone.
The memorable sight of players punching the Valley Parade air a week earlier after downing Wycombe seemed light years ago. On Saturday, the miserable Bantams were lucky to slink away with only conceding four.
The impregnable defence, the cornerstone of City’s recent success, was ripped apart with startling ease. Barnet were first to every challenge; first to every loose ball.
They attacked at will, finding little opposition, and but for some late wastefulness and a couple of fine stops from Rhys Evans, the hosts could have rattled up a score to match the neighbouring cricket club.
Some will point to the inclusion of Evans as the catalyst for such a dramatic implosion. They would be completely off the mark.
Yes, a keeper not being able to take goal kicks handed the initiative to Barnet’s bruising front pair, who were able to position themselves ten yards outside the penalty area knowing there was no danger of offside. And the feeling of uncertainty was not helped when Luke O’Brien scuffed the opening kick straight along the floor.
But Evans justified his manager’s faith with his shot-stopping ability and the way he confidently stood up to the predictable Barnet tactic to stick every high ball straight down his throat.
City’s problems stemmed from a general feeling that they only had to turn up to reel off the three points.
The players may deny it until they are blue in the face but there was a general malaise about the play, right from the start, that suggested they saw the home side as easy meat after the tougher predators encountered in recent weeks.
They were in for a rude shock.
Barnet admittedly did not look like a side without a win in 2009 and wingers Albert Adomah, City’s nemesis at Valley Parade, and Plymouth’s on-loan Yannick Bolasie took it in turns to torment the over-run back four.
O’Brien had a particularly tough afternoon against the electrifying Adomah, although the youngster got precious little support from Steve Jones in front of him.
Jones’s only contribution of note in a wretched display was his early burst in the box after a neat one-two with Michael Boulding – only to slip as if shot by a sniper. The game went downhill from there.
Even City’s centre halves weren’t immune to the blanket of unease that smothered those around them as Graeme Lee and Matt Clarke came off distinctly second best to the 40-year-old Paul Furlong and his under-rated partner John O’Flynn.
Yet for 24 minutes, there was no hint of the carnage to follow. Both sides had seen efforts cleared off the line, Zesh Rehman bravely denying Furlong before Joe Devera made sure Peter Thorne’s goal drought continued.
Then sloppy defending destroyed City’s bid for a fifth straight clean sheet as Barnet struck from an awful corner.
Boulding switched off at the near post and let it run out of play – or so he thought. Only it didn’t as Adomah appeared from nowhere along the byline to keep the ball alive.
There were still chances to clear it but none were taken and eventually, via a ricochet, centre back Gary Breen fed Adomah to poke home through a sea of legs.
Furlong was less than a foot away from heading a second before Thorne tested Lee Harrison with a smart snap-shot.
But City were in deeper trouble as half-time approached. Dean Furman, their best outfield player, fouled Bolasie and O’Flynn used his height advantage on marker O’Brien to glance home the free-kick from Nicky Deverdics.
Barnet went off to an ovation reserved for champions but there were still jitters among the home faithful.
That was understandable given that Barnet had already blown 15 leads this season, three of them from 2-0.
City, of course, had pulled the rabbit out the hat three times from two-goal deficits. McCall spent a fiery half-time drumming that message home.
It looked to have worked when they grabbed a lifeline 11 minutes into the second half. Thorne’s header from Nicky Law’s free-kick popped up invitingly for Boulding to nudge home from a couple of yards.
But before City had chance to play on Barnet’s nerves, they had frittered away a third goal. Adomah, inevitably, was at the heart of it as City failed to clear their lines from a throw-in. The ball worked its way from left flank to right, where Adomah cut it back to Furlong and Bolasie diverted his shot home.
Harrison saved strongly from Lee’s thumping setpiece before Barnet were celebrating a fourth, right back Joe Devera cutting in to drive the first goal of his career past Evans.
City were in bits and it could have got worse. Evans made a flying save from Adomah after City were exposed by another speedy counter, Furlong missed with another header before Evans came to the rescue again to deny O’Flynn.
The cries of “ole, ole” as Barnet brought out the party tricks and played keep ball just added to the unreal feel of the game. The final whistle couldn’t come quick enough.
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