Barnet will need 20 points from their remaining ten Skrill Premier matches to secure a place in the play-offs, according to Bees director of football Paul Fairclough.

Barnet currently sit fifth in the table but their momentum has been halted following back-to-back home defeats.

After Ulrich Landvreugd and Dick Schreuder were placed in charge of the first team, the Bees went on a five-match winning run.

However, losses against Woking and Gateshead at The Hive have seen the Bees fall back into a pack of 12 teams with realistic hopes of reaching the play-off positions.

Fairclough believes Barnet are competing for fourth spot in the table and added: “I feel that we will need 20 points in these final ten games to be sure. So there is a lot of work to go but it is achievable.

“Reaching the play-offs is on, make no mistake about that.”

But first Barnet must “decipher” what has gone wrong in the last two matches.

“We have to regroup,” Fairclough said. “We have to look at what has changed in our performances in the last week.

“Injuries don’t help but we can’t blame them. We have to look at ourselves and decipher these last two displays.

“We can’t just look at the opposition, we have to take a hard look at ourselves and come up with the answers.

“If we come up with the right answers we can push on. If we don’t then we become aimless.”

What is perhaps most worrying for Barnet supporters is the lack of attacking threat from their side against Gateshead on Saturday.

The game was settled thanks to a headed goal from Jamie Chandler with 20 minutes remaining and the Bees rarely looked like finding a response.

Top scorer Jake Hyde is likely to miss the next month as he recovers from a hamstring injury and Fairclough said the striker’s absence is highlighting his quality.

He said: “When you are missing certain players, it is then you appreciate what they have done for you. Jake used to be a player who needed someone else alongside him.

“But under the guidance of Edgar (Davids), Uli and Dick he has learnt to become a sole striker and he is very good at it.

“He knows where to run when we’ve got the ball and when the opponents have the ball. He’s learnt how to play that game and has become one of the best players in the league in that position.”

Barnet were without Mark Byrne and Elliot Johnson on Saturday and with Graham Stack, Hyde and Luisma Villa also absent, the Bees were without five first-team regulars.

Fairclough admitted injuries have harmed the side but didn’t want to use that as an excuse for their poor displays.

“We’ve got a big squad and we should be able to cope with the injuries that we have got.”

He added: “All is not lost. If you had said back in August, that at this part of the season we’d be in the play-off positions, then I would’ve taken that.

“We’ve got ten games to go and are in the play-offs. There is a lot of football to go and there will be many twists and turns before the end of the season.”