Barnet 4-0 York City HBailey 16  Lee 36  Yakubu 65  Sinclair 74      Saturday 23rd October 2004, Nationwide Conference Attendance: 2,501

Another very disappointing away trip for 212 faithful City fans who made the long trip down to North London. In a match played in very poor conditions due to heavy rain (standing water was beginning to appear by the end of the match) City failed to give even a halfway reasonable account of themselves and but for the brilliance of keeper Stockdale could have been hit for 6 or 7.

The first 10 minutes were pretty even, City producing a couple of speculative efforts through Bishop. Unfortunately on 16 minutes Barnet took the lead - a good cross from the left from Graham was headed in by Bailey. The last touch may have been off a City defender trying to clear.

Following that City struggled to get back in the game, restricted to speculative efforts, and their chances were not helped by an injury to striker Robinson, who was substituted with Turkish youth international Yalcin getting a chance to impress.

Towards the end of the first half City went 2-0 down with a spectacular second goal from Barnet from Lee. A half cleared ball fell on the edge of the area to the Barnet midfielder, who whacked it in going in off the bar leaving the surprised City keeper no chance.

In the second half City continued to make very little impression on the Barnet goal. What chances they had were only really half ones - perhaps the best fell to Stewart, who after a missed header from Bishop found himself with a good chance from 10 yards. Unfortunately his effort flew well wide.

Meanwhile, Barnet were adding to their total - around 66 minutes a close range header was saved by keeper Stockdale, only for Yakubu to force the ball home from a few yards. In increasingly difficult conditions, about 10 or so minutes after this a fourth was added - Sinclair took the ball around Stockdale and from a difficult angle made no mistake.

City introduced Haw instead of the ineffective Coad, and brought on Smith for Pearson, but little resulted in this - in fact Barnet kept the upper hand, a fine reflex save from a header from Stockdale and a one on one save kept the score down.

Match ratings:

Stockdale 8 - Another mature performance from the young keeper. Did little wrong and couldn't have done any better with the goals. His agility kept the score down.

Brass 5 - An uncomfortable performance from the City boss today. Struggled throughout the match, his distribution was poor again and looks a weak link in the City defence.

Pearson 4 - Probably his worst City performance. Possibly to blame for Barnet's fourth goal, and struggled to command the defence.

Davies 5 - Poor display.

Merris 5 - Showed his versatility to switch to the right when Smith came on, but like all the defence looked poor.

Coad 5 1/2 - Worked hard but gave the ball away a fair bit. Not the best match for your full debut - not sure whether he's a right midfielder really.

Groves 4 - Anonymous as usual. Wins a fair bit in the air, but his severe lack of pace means he contributed little otherwise.

Dunning 5 - Lots of endeavour but no end product.

Stewart 5 - Did very little, looks a shadow of the player he was a month or so ago. Needs a rest desperately - but who else can we bring in there?

Robinson 6 - Difficult surface and to be fair he didn't really have enough time to make an impression.

Bishop 5 1/2 - Worked hard, didn't really have much created for him today.

Subs:
Yalcin 5 - A good chance for Yalcin to make an impression but he never really did. Given no service as well.

Haw - Little time to judge.

Smith - as above.

The ref 7 - Competent performance, didn't really notice him which is always a good sign.

Report by David Venables

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