Martin Allen was quick to praise his young talent despite Barnet exiting the Checkatrade Trophy on the back of a heavy defeat at home to Norwich U23s last night.
Allen named 10 academy graduates in his squad in a match spoilt as a contest by the 33rd minute sending off of Bondz N’Gala when the game was goalless.
Bees boss claimed some of his fledglings had excelled none the less.
“The result I don’t think shows the quality of the performance of some of our players,” he said. "It was an absolute pleasure to see some of our younger players play so well.
"Young Jack Taylor was an outstanding player in our team tonight and he’s only 18 while Ephron Mason-Clark, who came on for the last 20 minutes, is only 17 and has been superb in training and for the youth team recently."
Allen called the straight red card both harsh and a game changer, the one man disadvantage being a handicap too far against the quality of their East Anglian visitors.
"I don’t think it was a red card,” he added.
“It was a hard tackle but he had to go in to tackle and the ball was there to be won. It was the right challenge Bondz had to make. The referee saw it differently and we have to respect his view.
"They had not been anywhere near our goal at that point. After that to play against that sort of team with 11 men is hard. To play with 10 men and so many young players made it even more difficult."
