8:21am Sunday 27th July 2008
By Paul Wreyford
Barnet manager Paul Fairclough admitted his team were given a lesson by visitors Leeds yesterday.
Fairclough, speaking after the 2-0 friendly defeat at Underhill, said: "Leeds put in a great second half performance and gave us a lesson on how to keep the ball. Our ball retention was poor, but we will learn from that."
And Fairclough could take much encouragement from his side's first half showing.
"It was a great run-out for us and I thoroughly enjoyed the first 30 minutes. Our performance in the first half was better than against Arsenal in terms of attacking. We came out and played very well going forward."
But it was Leeds who struck ten minutes before the break.
"I could see their goal coming. For some reason, we started to go long. We got back into it and, at half-time, I was relatively pleased, but the second goal early on killed us off. It dealt a blow to some of our lads."
Though Leeds went on to control the game, the Bees still created two very good opportunities, Adam Birchall and Luke Medley guilty of squandering two "fantastic" chances, according to Fairclough.
"In the end it could have been 2-2," he said.
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