Dean Brennan praised the mindset of his players as Barnet emerged comfortable 2-0 winners over League Two side AFC Wimbledon in their final pre-season friendly on Saturday.

Goals from last season’s top scorer Nicke Kabamba and centre-half Adebola Oluwo secured victory for Bees to complete an impressive, unbeaten pre-season campaign.

“Good performance. We defended really well when we had to, and we were good in possession,” said Brennan.

“There’s still a couple of teething problems, but all in all, I’m happy with the pre-season. Not just the performance today. This is the end of our week five - we do a six-week pre-season, which ends obviously next Friday when we travel to Halifax.

"But the players’ attitude and application towards what I expected of them, especially in the first three weeks, made it hell for them. I’ve got to be honest with you.

“We want to be the fittest side in the division, and the fitter you are, the easier this business is, but all in all, their attitude, togetherness, and application have been outstanding. I’m proud of our performance today also, as at times I thought we were excellent.”

Having lost a National League play-off semi-final 4-0 at home to Solihull Moors at the end of the last campaign, Brennan touched on his ideas for the new campaign and how he plans on bouncing back.

“I’m a big believer in learning from yesterday, that’s what I’m about," he told the club's website.

"We’ve just got to take it one game at a time, one session at a time, and I don’t look too far ahead.

“We understand the expectations of us this year, but we’ve created the expectations. When I came to this club three or four years ago, it was bottom of the table. So, we’ve done that through hard work, through togetherness, through honesty, and that won’t change, and the players have shown that.

“I believe in the whole group. Some of them are going to be frustrated as we’ve got a larger group this year, and they’re not going to play as much as they want, but we need to share the load.

"We had a tough time at the back end of autumn where we didn’t pick up enough points, so we’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

As the new season looms, Brennan wanted to give his players as much playing time as possible before the 400-mile round trip to Halifax on Friday, and a performance such as this was perfect preparation for the long-awaited start to the new campaign.

“These are subs we make, and that’s what we do. That’s who’s available to us at the moment,” said Brennan when questioned about the decision to make just two changes throughout the entire game.

“We’re expecting Reece-Hall Johnson and Nick Tavares back training. Jordan Cropper should be back training. So, we’ve got a couple of selection dilemmas and headaches, but they’re good problems to have, and they’re ones I want to be having.

"That’s how we treated it and we only made two subs. That’s the mentality of us - we've got to create that winning mentality.”

After their opening fixture of the National League campaign on Saturday (3pm), Barnet travel Ebbsfleet United on August 17 before hosting Forest Green Rovers three days later at the Hive.