This was Ian Burchnall's 50th match in charge of team affairs at Notts County and from a footballing perspective he couldn't have hoped for much more, except maybe a clean sheet, but I suppose you can't have everything.
Burchnall mixed it up a bit and started with a change to the usual three at the back setting up with an attack minded 4-2-3-1, a formation that showcased the very best of Notts' attacking players as well as proving you can definitely have both Ruben Rodrigues and Cal Roberts on the pitch at the same time.
Also, with Palmer beside him sharing the deep lying midfielder role, Ed Francis looked every inch the footballer we we've been waiting for.
The night though belonged to Elisha Sam. Two first half goals and an all round impressive performance did little to suggest he wasn't worth his first league start of the season.
Key match stats.
The match stats certainly confirm Notts' dominance with some of the best numbers seen for Ian Burchnall's men this season.
The outstanding stat is PPDA where Notts were allowed 26.41 passes per attacking action. If ever there was an anti-press then it was demonstrated with aplomb by Barnet.
Despite all the positives it's important we identify the fact that Notts still have frailties in defence, especially when faced with a high tempo counter attack which was evident with the Barnet goal but also still struggling to deal with low fast balls into the box.
That aside it was nice to see the Magpies back to winning ways again and in some style.
Points needed. Remember, these targets were set at the start of the season and based on average points needed over the last half a dozen season. It's beginning to look though that this season could be a bit of on outlier in this respect.
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Progress updated and Notts appear to be in an 8th place time warp.
National League results tracker updated.
Goal segment chart:
Six game segments updated and a good start to this block of 6 games.
Player stats updated:
As usual this is the new table that is also available to view on the player stats page of the website here. There will also be separate tables for the two cup competitions.
Goals and assists chart. 36 Goals and 16 assists between Wootton, Rodrigues and Roberts is not to be sniffed at.
Goal scatter charts.
You can hover on the dots (tap if on a touch screen) to view details for each goal.
Expected goals tells its own story.
A couple of things worth mentioning. Eli Sam's first goal xG came in at 0.87 which is the highest value xG recorded by a Notts player this season.
By contrast Cal Roberts goal recorded an xG value of just 0.04 which underlines just how clinical he can be when given half a chance.
Match xG stats:
Player xG Stats: Eli Sam me Lord . . .
National League goal scorers includes cup games, penalties and own goals.
Ian Burchnall's half century.
Halifax away in the Trophy on Saturday. I'll post what stats I can but it's likely to be a truncated version.
As always thanks for reading.
COYP!
Richard