Greg Heald, Barnet's classy central defender, could be back for the home Third Division match with his former club Peterborough on Saturday.

It would be the first appearance of the season for Heald, who has been troubled by a niggling back injury.

After resuming training last week, he was due to have a run-out for the reserves at Millwall yesterday (Wednesday), and if there was no ill-reaction, he could step straight back into a defence that has missed his aerial dominance and all-round ability.

Heald's presence would be a further boost for the Bees, whose confidence was enhanced by Monday's 2-0 win at fellow strugglers Shewsbury, ending a three-match losing spell and lifting them off bottom spot to 13th in the table.

Saturday's match sees the return to Underhill of charismatic Peterborough and former Bees' boss Barry Fry. On his last visit, Barnet ruined Fry's Christmas with a 2-0 win in their best performance of the season. That set the 'Posh' on the slide as they lost to the eventual bottom two, Brighton and Doncaster, and missed out on the play-offs.

Peterborough got off to a shaky start this term, but struck form on Monday with a 4-1 home win over Exeter, Jimmy Quinn scoring twice.

Two former Bees players in the line-up were Mick Bodley and Derek Payne, and they are likely to be in action again on Saturday.

On Tuesday, Barnet are away to Cardiff City, who won 3-0 at Shrewsbury a week before the Bees were successful there. City, who have lost both their home games, against Peterborough and Rotherham, crashed 3-0 away to Darlington on Monday.

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