Dean Brennan lamented Barnet's defensive performance as they scraped a 3-3 draw at home to Sutton United on Boxing Day.

Having gone behind on 20 minutes to Ashley Nadesan’s effort, Ryan Glover’s equaliser nine minutes later and Ade Oluwo’s goal just before half-time put Bees ahead at the break.

Will Davies and Besart Topallaj put the visitors in front again, but Glover’s last-gasp strike spared Barnet’s blushes.

Brennan said: “To be winning 2-1 at half-time and be in total control was good because we went behind, but our defensive performance, our back three, were kamikaze. They were shocking really.

“The level of performance and standards they’ve set themselves - they’ve nowhere near reached. Every one of them, they were terrible. It’s a terrible performance from them.

“If you give goals like that away, that’s what’ll happen. You defend like that and come up with that mentality. It was really poor from us, and not like us.

"We showed character, we showed togetherness, and we kept plugging away. We managed to get a late equaliser, but we’ve only got ourselves to blame.”

Prompted to credit the attacking display from his side Brennan insisted Bees should be delivering more from the chances they created.

“We should score more goals in every game,” he told the club website.

“There’s a chance at the start of the second half for (Callum) Stead. We can’t miss that. He’s got to score. Great play from Glover down the left - he was man of the match, he was outstanding.

“Steady’s three yards out and all he’s got to do is nod it in the back of the net, but he manages to nod it wide, so it’s very frustrating.”

Top scorer Nicke Kabamba was brought on for the second half, but little seemed to change as Davies and Topallaj put Sutton back in front.

Brennan added: “When I brought Nicke on, I thought we got worse. I didn’t think we got any better. He’s meant to be a stalwart of one of our main players. He’s got to sort his form out.

“Steady ran his socks off, but that eight minutes where they managed to score two goals, the third goal was just absolute madness.

"I’ve got to give them credit as they’ve made it difficult for us, and they’ve sat in, but when we give away the goals we gave away today, it’s just so frustrating when we’re in so much control.”

After starting 2025 at Eastleigh on New Year's Day Bees head to Altrincham for an FA Trophy fourth-round tie on Saturday.