There is a good case that this is the kind of fixture that starts to reveal whether early-season momentum is real. Barnet travel north to face Crewe Alexandra at the Alexandra Stadium at 3pm, and both teams arrive with enough credibility to make this more than just another League Two date in the calendar.
Barnet’s opening 12 games have produced 25 points, a return that puts Dean Brennan’s side right in the mix near the top end of the table. Victory here would wrap up an impressive October and further strengthen the argument that Barnet’s start is built on more than a short burst of form. That matters because, in a division as tight as Sky Bet League Two, early points can quickly become a platform.
Crewe, though, are hardly a soft landing. They sit in fourth place and have only suffered two defeats this season, even if they come into this game on the back of two straight losses. That is the tension in this one: Barnet have the cleaner recent narrative, but Crewe’s overall season has still been strong enough to keep them firmly among the contenders.
The contrast in recent results adds another layer. Barnet beat York City 3-1 under the lights at The Hive in their latest league outing, while Crewe were on the wrong end of a 5-1 loss to Chesterfield. Even so, one bad afternoon does not erase a season’s worth of work, and Crewe’s place in the table suggests they have done plenty right across the opening stretch.
Brennan also has reasons to feel encouraged by the way his side are finding goals from different moments. Earlier in the month, Jordan Gibson scored a match-winning double against Rochdale, and he had already found the decisive goal against Swindon on a previous league match. Those are the sort of details that matter in a side trying to keep pace at the top end: not just winning, but finding different ways to do it.
There is also the broader context of Crewe’s recent evolution. Lee Bell called time on his playing career in 2015, then initially took the Crewe Alexandra manager's hotseat in April 2022 before being appointed permanently in December 2022. That timeline speaks to a club that has been building continuity, and continuity is often what separates a decent run from a sustained one in League Two.
So this match is not simply Barnet against a team in fourth. It is Barnet against a side that has spent recent years as a mainstay in the division, and against a test that will tell us more about how far Brennan’s team can carry this start. If Barnet leave the Alexandra Stadium with another result, October will look even more impressive. If they do not, Crewe’s standing will remind everyone just how hard it is to turn a strong opening into something lasting.
