The Martin Allen effect takes place
1April 29, 2012 by joshilan14
The last home match of the season against AFC Wimbledon saw Barnet not only produce their best performance of the season, but also saw the Bees get a vital three points in the battle against relegation. A 4-0 win over the Wombles saw Barnet get their biggest win of the season, with this result being achieved due to the work done by Martin Allen. His first game didn’t go to plan as we sufferred a 3-0 loss away to an impressive Southend United side, but this was all-but forgotten after the result against AFC Wimbledon.
There were many changes to the side that I was initially sceptical about, but they turned out to be genius decisions. Clovis Kamdjo was moved back to his original position of centre-back and he was faultles; the ball playing centre-back Michael Hector was moved to centre midfield, where his skills were utilised more but most impressively in my view was Mark Byrne as he moved from centre midfield to right back, where he played like the Dani Alves of Barnet due to his frequent overlapping play and tough tackling.
The game itself was brilliant from start to finish, with Barnet being both resilient at the back and strong going forward. Ricky Holmes was outstanding as he got a goal and created two; while the likes of Mark Hughes, Sam Deering, Mark Byrne, Michael Hector et al also had a brilliant game. The only player who had a bad game was Izale McLeod, who has been unimpressive of late.
A result like that should have meant that we were safe for another season, but Crawley’s surprise capitulation at home to Hereford meant that the relegation battle will go down to the last day. The Martin Allen effect has taken place as he has got us playing well in a short period of time. He has got his head down and is focused on the job on hand, with him banning the media from the club last week. He has also deflected the praise away from himself by saying that “It was the players who did brilliantly.” Without him though, we could have an R next to our name already and with a win next week, Allen would have saved Barnet in yet another three match spell!
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[...] United had many Barnet fans worrying that our luck might run out in yet another relegation battle. A 4-0 win at home to AFC Wimbledon not only produced our biggest win of the season, but an outstan… We could have secured survival on the basis of this result, but Hereford United’s shock 3-0 win [...]