The Bees of Barnet will be buzzing to be back in the EFL and they begin their campaign against Fleetwood.

📂 Cheat Sheets on Barnet matches will be available from Gameweek 2

📈 Barnet v Fleetwood Form & Tactics

Dean Brennan has developed himself a reputation for a couple of things, suffering no fools, even in the press, and using a big squad to his advantage.

There is no doubt that Barnet very much deserved their promotion as champions last season. The Bees dominated the National League with a flexible tactical system. The last few matches saw Brennan utilise a 3-4-2-1 formation, but at various times in the season there were 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 3-5-2, 3-4-3, and other systems being used.

This demonstrates that Brennan is happy to be flexible, knowing that the core message to his players isn’t necessarily about formation or shape, but more about the demands on the players from a physical and style-of-play perspective. Each player is expected to commit fully to the game plan and the team as a whole, because the benefit to Barnet’s depth is that Brennan can afford to replace players when they are tired.

The Pete Wild version of Fleetwood will emerge more definitively this season, having had the chance to have a full pre-season with the Cod Army players.

Wild tried a few different formations at the back end of last season, but is generally considered to be a 3-5-2 manager. Certainly, the squad is one that is very much set up for that formation, but there has to be concern about a plan B both within games and across the course of the season.

If their phalanx of peak age strikers can stay fit and the ball can get to them regularly enough, then goals could come, but I don’t see enough goals in that squad to challenge for promotion.

🏁 Ref Watch

Aaron Bannister

• Bannister has only ever officiated 18 EFL matches, this looks to be his first full-time season.

• From his 12 matches officiated at League Two  level, he averages 4.58 yellow cards per match, which is fairly high.

• He also has a fairly high rate of fouls given, over 25 per match so far in his young career.

📊 Barnet v Fleetwood Key Stats

• Callum Stead was Barnet’s top scorer last season with 18 league goals, he could be worth looking at in the goalscorer markets.

• Barnet conceded only 15 times at home in 23 league matches, the win to nil could be an option for a bigger price (3.40).

• Barnet have spent seven seasons out of the EFL, their longest spell since joining the Football League in 1991, they will be keen to come back with a bang.

• Fleetwood didn’t manage to get any of their players to score double figures in the league last season, which demonstrates one of their issues to overcome here.

• However, they did have two players over 10 yellow cards, along with the 5th-highest total number of yellows in League Two last season; this could be a good angle to target here.

• Fleetwood also conceded the joint-highest number of penalties in League Two last season with eight.

Football Predictions at Andy's Bet Club

Andy's Bet Club is packed full of Expert Football Tips, we also have an easy-to-use Bet Builder Stats tool to help you conduct your own research. Look out for the latest Gem Bets and EFL Predictions on ABC this week.

Check out this week's action with our EFL Shots Accumulator, Both Teams To Score Acca, plus EFL Accumulator Tips. We also have coverage of the EFL with Bet Builders for Motherwell v Rangers, Cardiff v Peterborough and Celtic v St Mirren.

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We also have Barnet v Fleetwood Betting Stats for pre-game browsing and Paddy Power Beat The Drop Tips.

* I recommend waiting for confirmed team line-ups before placing any bets.

* All odds displayed correct at the time of publishing.