Only three things are in life can be described as certainties: death, taxes and players getting one over on their former clubs.

It is an unwritten law in football that ex-players should come out on top, and quite often score, when facing an old team.

From the moment Tresor Kandol signed for Barnet last month, following an unsuccessful loan spell at Darlington, he must have been relishing the chance to face Quakers and prove that he could hack it in League Two after all.

His three-month loan from Dagenham earlier this season proved beneficial to neither party, but on Saturday it must surely have provided extra motivation for the striker.

His goal, in a performance better than anything he ever managed when at Darlington, takes his Barnet tally up to four goals in six matches, which perhaps suggests that he is up to League Two standard after all. But the late chances that Taiwo Atieno and Akpo Sodje missed, coupled with David Hodgson's post-match comments, suggest where the futures of Quakers' current strikeforce lies.

With only the keeper to beat with only four minutes to go, the pair were both guilty of poor misses that a decent striker, such as Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu or Clyde Wijnhard for example, would probably not have.

A point may have been a fair result, if only for Darlington's work-rate, but that they rarely called the Barnet keeper into action says much about the attacking impotency that has been an unwanted feature of most of the season.

The forward positions have proven particularly problematic and that Kandol's 80th minute header ended up being the winner was a real kick in the teeth for Hodgson whose team has struggled since the departures of Ndumbu-Nsungu and Kyle Lafferty.

The season began with Wijnhard and Simon Johnson as the front pairing but their replacements have continually been stop-gap solutions, some effective, some otherwise. Now that the season is effectively over, Hodgson must be really regretting not handing Ndumbu-Nsungu a contract longer than six months.

A revolving door policy has been in operation throughout the team as a combination of injuries, suspension, poor performances and the failure to tie people down to long-term contracts has seen 36 different players being used, seven more than last season.

Ten of those 36 have been strikers but only Ndumbu-Nsungu - 11 goals in 23 games - and Lafferty, to a lesser extent with three in nine, were effective in front of goal.

During Quakers' run of one defeat in 12 from December to February, Ndumbu-Nsungu featured for the first five games before being replaced by Lafferty but since the latter's return to Burnley Darlington have scored just three in eight games, winning just one in that period.

After Saturday's 13th defeat of the season, Hodgson admitted: "We need a complete new strikeforce, that is a major priority at this club. A very good strikeforce is all it takes at this level.

"You can only get to the top of the league if you score goals, simple as that. When we had strikers at the club we had that good run.

"Guy would have scored in this game and Kyle would have at least got a few shots in but we have not got those players now so we just have to deal with what we have got.

"We are in desperate need of a goalscorer. I counted nine times when a ball went across the face of goal from crosses, corners and free-kicks and not a single player had the sense to watch the flight of the ball and then go and meet it.

"We had those two shots at the end, why didn't they hit it over the keeper I do not know? You can't kick the ball through him."

Darlington have now lost more than they have won this season and Saturday's defeat provided a neat synopsis of a turbulent year. Injuries have hit hard, the latest coming when Adrian Webster felt a problem with an Achillies in the warm-up so was replaced on the bench by James Beaumont.

Hodgson has changed formations throughout this term, and three times he did it on Saturday. Firstly after 20 minutes by ditching 3-5-2 in favour of 4-4-2. This saw Matty Appleby move into central midfield, leaving Shelton Martis and Matt Clarke to deal with Kandol, but the striker rose to the occasion.

Twice he back-heeled past Martis, the second time resulting in a goal that was ruled out for offside.

Despite this, scoring chances were few as each side lacked the guile to penetrate each other's defence, especially Quakers who simply did not give Jemal Johnson or Andy Cooke any service, while Kandol too lacked support for the home side.

His best first-half chance was a header well saved by Sam Russell which came after evading Martis, who endured his least convincing game for sometime.

For the beginning of the second half Hodgson went back to 3-5-2, but when Atieno came on for his debut after 51 minutes he made a third formation change, going to 4-3-3 and Darlington's approach play improved with the substitute missing a header following Joe Kendrick's cross.

There was little to choose between the sides, they even traded the same amount of chances. Kandol saw Russell save another header before Atieno missed Darlington's best chance so far, this time glancing wide a superb delivery from Ryan Valentine.

Both teams escaped punishment for separate incidents, first Clarke did his best to concede a penalty by clearly pulling Dean Sinclair to the floor, but the referee somehow ignored the incident.

Seconds later Barnet keeper Ross Flitney shoved Martis to the ground, using two hands to push the Dutchman in a clear case of violent conduct. But referee Ray Lee only booked Flitney, perhaps to atone for not punishing Clarke.

Just when it appeared neither side had enough about them to grab a goal, Kandol did just that when he was afforded as much space as he wanted in the Darlington penalty area to head home a long throw.

Although neither team had appeared capable of scoring, Kandol scoring against his former team was always a distinct possibility made even more likely by poor marking.

Russell kept it down to 1-0 with a superb save to deny Liam Hatch and then just to sum up Darlington's striker problems this season, Atieno and Sodje both wasted superb chances by displaying a lack of composure in front of goal.

Jemal Johnson's long-range effort was parried by the Barnet keeper who stayed grounded but the rebounds from Atieno and Sodje were both driven straight at the grateful Flitney.

Result: Barnet 1, Darlington 0.

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