Barnet’s latest pre-season outing might have ended in a narrow 1-0 reverse but manager John Still is experienced enough to know that results are secondary in the weeks leading up to the real action kicking off in August.

So much so, in fact, that he determined that Saturday’s defeat to a strong Ipswich Town side was their best performance since he returned to the club in May.

Defeat to the Tractors Boys was the Bees’ third of pre-season after prior losses to Queens Park Rangers and West Bromwich Albion, and followed two victories over Fulham Under-23s and Maldon & Tiptree.

However the 68-year-old remains in confident mood and believes the positives from their performance at the weekend outweighed the negatives.

In an interview published on the club’s website, Still said: “That’s the best we’ve been. I thought we were good today. There wasn’t too many goalscoring chances for either team but I thought we created the better chances.”

The only gripe was Barnet’s inability to cash in on the chances when they arrived – a useful lesson that while inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, won’t be tolerated by Still in the same way when the National League season commences.

“As always when you start to chop and change you lose a bit of cohesion but we didn’t lose much cohesion,” Still said when referring to the need to rotate. “I look at their goal and probably be a touch disappointed, though it was a good finish.”

He added: “I was really, really pleased. Yes we’ve got to take our chances and we haven’t taken our chances but I was absolutely delighted with how we played.”

With a young side matching up against Championship opposition, there was plenty of reasons to feel cheery as competition for places continues to hot up with a number of the Bees’ fringe players impressing so far.

“As a manager you want choices, you don’t want to look at your team and go ‘I don’t know who is going to replace him’ or ‘I don’t know what competition he’s got’,” he said.

“I think what we found today, we found people that can provide good competition for places.”

Adding to that burgeoning promise, the long-awaited return of Dave Tarpey after nearly a year out might restore the clinical edge that has been lacking, though Still wisely suggested he will be eased back into the fold as he builds up his match fitness.

“It’s important that we bring Dave [Tarpey] on slowly, then we’ll look at where he is. I don’t want to rush him, I don’t want to kill him.”

The Barnet manager also confirmed that he hopes to add two further faces to his squad in time for their season opener at Aldershot Town on August 4.

“If I look at where we were when I came in to where we are now, I’m absolutely delighted. We are still trying to bring in two players that we hope we’ll be able to complete before we start the season.”