LAST Saturday's game was a very frustrating one for everyone at Accrington Stanley.
In my view, Chester came with one thing in mind - not to concede - and they did a good job in frustrating us.
I said after the game that they were very negative and I've taken a bit of stick for some of my comments, from City boss Mark Wright among others. But it wasn't meant as a derogatory statement.
They came with five centre halves at the back and tried to stop us from playing. They did that and they were very effective at it.
They were very strong at the back and they disrupted us - but that isn't the way we try to play.
We want to give value for money to our fans but we weren't able to do that against Chester.
But we'll look to do that against Barnet on Saturday and hopefully come away with the three points.
John Coleman and I now have at out disposal at embarrassment of riches. Alan Rogers and Shaun Whalley are back from suspension and Mauro Alexandre Da Silva Almeida is available now after we got international clearance so we're approaching full strength.
Peter Cavanagh is almost ready for action, as is Andy Tretton, and Danny Ventre has just started light training after recovering from his broken leg.
That just leaves Leighton McGivern who needs a lot of rehabilitation to recover from his broken leg.
It's a nice problem for us to have because for a little while, such was the extent of our injuries, the team almost picked itself.
That's never good and goes someway to explaining our current predicament.
But now, we have real competition for places and players know they have to perform if they are to keep the shirt.
But we know we'll face a big test down at Barnet and we need to be ready for a fight.
We got our first win back as a league club against them in August and we know we're good enough to beat them again.
But talk is cheap and we have to start putting the points on the board now to get us away from the drop zone.
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