Barnet defender Jack Saville believes Martin Allen can lead the Bees into the Skrill Premier play-offs and says the players “don’t want to annoy” their new head coach.

Allen returned to Barnet last Wednesday and is in charge of the Bees for a fourth time.

His reign got off to a good start as Barnet completed a 2-0 win against Hereford United on Saturday – it was first time the Bees avoided defeat in five matches.

Saville played under Allen for three matches in 2012 and says the head coach’s man management skills are “brilliant”.

He added: “He has this presence, you’re scared of him. He gets his point across and gets it across quickly, which is the main thing.

“You listen to him, you don’t want to annoy him and you do what he says. His ways work as his career has shown.

“So I am pleased that he is back and he is a very good manager.”

Saturday’s win leaves Barnet eighth in the table. They’re only one point outside of the play-offs but several of the teams around them have games in hand.

However, Saville is confident the club can secure a place in the top five.

“I think he (Allen) will get us promoted if I am honest,” he said.

“I think we can do it. We’ve beaten the top teams like Forest Green away and Grimsby Town at home. We’ve got the squad to do it and the new manager is positive and believes we can do it.

“So I think we can go on and get promoted.”

Allen handed Jon Nurse his fourth league start against Hereford and the veteran striker impressed alongside Harry Crawford.

The Barbados international says the players remain confident of securing a place in the play-offs and he is happy to have helped end the club’s four-match losing league run.

He said: “We’ve been confident since the start of the season that we had a good enough group to reach the play-offs.

“Hopefully with a bit of guidance from Martin Allen we can achieve what we set out to do at the start of the season.”

He continued: “If someone had said a few weeks ago that we would win six and lose four of our next ten matches, then I think we would have snapped their hands off for that.

“But it is nice to end the losing streak and hopefully we can now kick on.”