A look at the Bees' squad ahead of Saturday's match with Chesterfield.

Barnet are just a few days away from the opening day of the 2008/09 season with a league Two match at Underhill on Saturday against Chesterfield. At the time of writing, Barnet have a slim first team squad of just 18, plus assistant manager, Ian Hendon who has been given a squad number, as he was last season, but is anyway injured. With goalkeeper, Rob Beckwith on the treatment table and by no means certain to start on Saturday, many fans are worried that the squad is a bit too thin.

Apart from Beckwith, Barnet only currently have Lee Harrison in goal and might have to call on young PROTEC keeper, Phil Carpenter to be on the bench on Saturday. Barnet also currently have only 5 back four players at the club if you don't include Hendon. Two of these, Ashley Carew and Michael Leary have also both only recently been converted from midfield players to defenders, though it must be said that both players, particularly Carew, have looked comfortable at the back. Even so, a couple of injuries at the back would leave Paul Fairclough with a real problem. One only has to look at the injury problems at the end of last season to see this and the club could call on Nicky Nicolau, Sagi Burton and Jordan Parkes then. The only left sided defender is Kenny Gillet and it is worrying what will happen if he gets injured. However, we understand that Paul Fairclough is in talks with former Barnsley and Gretna left sided defender, Rhys Meynell who played at Wingate & Finchley and Harrow Borough last week so this may give the defence a little more strength in depth.

At first sight the midfield seems stronger with the club having 7 players plus possibly, Carew and Leary. However, here again there a lack of left sided players here too, with Nicky Deverdics the only left footed midfield player at the club at present. Deverdics seems likely to start in the central midfield, partnering either Bishop or Porter, so it seems likely that either Kieron St. Amie or Danny Hart will start on the left on Saturday even though they are really right sided midfield players. Possibly the problem might be solved by former Crystal Palace winger, Ryan Hall who should resume training with Barnet later this week and who impressed at St. Albans and is naturally left footed.

Up front there is reasonable competition for places with the arrival of Luke Medley from Bradford City. Medley has scored five times in pre-season matches for Barnet and looks very promising but Fairclough has said that he is still looking for another striker to strengthen the squad and has released Frenchman, Karim Rouani who scored against Watford. It is, of course, possible that Barnet may get a striker on loan or indeed an on loan defender or midfield player. If the club could loan another player like Josh Wright last season then it would make an immense difference to the team. Fairclough has said that Spurs have offered to let players go to Barnet on loan so it may be that that he already has plans to take a player from them on loan before the end of the transfer window in August.

Last season, a few players arrived after the start of the season such as Kenny Gillet and Joe O'Cearuill, so it could be that this will happen again this season. Who knows what the next few days may bring. We may have a couple of new players before the big kick off on Saturday and maybe another one or two before the end of the month.

As things stand at present, I would expect the team on Saturday to look something like this, Harrison; Carew, Devera, Yakubu, Gillet; Adomah, Bishop, Deverdics, St. Amie; Birchall, Akurang. I'm sure all the fans will get behind the players, whatever the line up and support the side as they look to start with an opening day win for the first time since we returned to the league in 2005.