It still has not sunk in that we will be playing Blue Square Premier football this season. With Edgar Davids at the helm, and arguably the best Barnet squad in years, there were plenty reasons for optimism if we survived.

It was not meant to be and we went down on 51 points – the biggest total achieved by a relegated side in League Two history.

If the season had started when Davids arrived we would have been 10th in the table.

In fact we were closer to a play-off berth than to a relegation spot, which highlights the brilliant work he did to give us a fighting chance when it seemed all hope of survival was lost after the disastrous Mark Robson era.

Keeping Davids at the helm will be imperative to our success next season. He has stated a desire in staying with the club but said he has to “meet with the chairman” first.

If he stays our chances of being the first team since Carlisle United in the 2004/2005 season to secure an instant return increase massively.

While Davids is a superb manager, should he stay, he will have a brilliant advisor to work off. Very few people know the non-league like Paul Fairclough, Barnet’s director of football.

He has worked his way out of the division before and he has a vast amount of contacts in this division, partly from his work with the England C team.

If he can pass on this knowledge to Davids, it will help the club to adjust a lot quicker to the rigours of the Blue Square Premier.

While keeping star players Ricky Holmes, Jake Hyde and David Stephens will be tricky it seems like many of the team will stay around for next season.

Graham Stack has already committed to the cause and it is hoped many others will follow suit. It will also give players who have struggled to impress, such as Harry Crawford, a chance to reverse their status.

As Tony Kleanthous said last week, we must “continue to integrate talented and hungry players from our Academy into our first-team.”

Our Academy is starting to produce a number of top talents and it is likely that we will see more home-grown players – such as Jamal Lowe, George Sykes and George McCluskey – in the first-team next season.

We must not forget that we are in a better position than many clubs who have been relegated to League Two. Unlike Boston United, Stockport County, Hereford United plus numerous others we are not financially burdened.

We also have a very good infrastructure and training facilities which will be the envy of every Blue Square Premier club.

Providing we keep Davids, a lot of our current team - whilst adding some extra experience, physicality and burgeoning youth prospects - we may be looking towards the top end of the table next season; which would represent a nice change.