Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2017 2:48 pm
Posts: 4815
Location: In the Armchair.
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THE CAZBAR BIG GAME PREVIEW – FOREST GREEN ROVERSOnce again the door to League 1 has opened ever so slightly with Wrexham losing on Tuesday night at Doncaster, and although we have gained a point on them drawing with Notts County, it feels that once again we have not taken advantage of a situation, as surely we needed to win, and if we had played anywhere close to our best we would have done.
As is becoming the norm at away games, too many players went missing or had an off day, and couple that with a team selection that baffled just about everyone, and furthermore questionable tactics that saw us sit back off County, and that armed with the knowledge the Magpies defence leaks worse than a visit from the Dambusters.
Yes Williamson has shouldered the blame, but it doesn’t feel right he has gambled on such things, especially at this stage of the season.
“Never change a winning side” should be painted on his office wall to remind him not to tinker, and furthermore, play our game, not theirs as I feel we have approached too many games this season trying to contain teams, it doesn’t suit our style, and too often it has been our downfall.
The plus side from Monday is we didn’t lose, although it was bloody close as that last minute cross flashed across our 6 yard box. We have to mention 2 good goals from us by Harrison as “Super Sub”, and an even better effort by Dean which will no doubt make it onto the Goal of the Season show reel.
I’m not going to dwell on it any longer, onto the next and a trip to Forest Green and the delights of vegan cola and oat milk.
Below are all the usual facts and figures.
FGR (24th) – P 41, W 9, D 9, L 23, GF 41, GA 68, Pts 36.
Dons (4th) – P 42, W 21, D 8, L 13, GF 71, GA 57, Pts 71.
FGR (H) (24th) – P 21, W 4, D 4, L 13, GF 18, GA 36, Pts 16.
Dons (A) (13th) – P 21, W 7, D 4, L 10, GF 28, GA 38, Pts 25.
Below is the home form in a bit more detail.
Won – Walsall, Tranmere, Crawley, Colchester
Drawn – Wrexham, AFC, Gillingham, Grimsby,
Lost – Stockport, Sutton, Mansfield, Accrington, Harrogate, Bradford, Barrow, Morecambe, Doncaster, Crewe, Newport, Swindon, Salford.
Last 6 Games.
Crewe 0 FGR 3
FGR 0 Stockport 3
Doncaster 2 FGR 0
FGR 0 Sutton 1
Bradford 0 FGR 2
FGR 2 Walsall 0
Stating the obvious FGR are a wounded but dangerous team, they are fighting for their EFL existence, this is not going to be a walkover. They are rank bottom regarding home form but there is a glimmer of hope when you take into consideration they drew at home versus Wrexham recently and last week went to Crewe who are in the playoffs and humiliated them 3-0.
The top scorer for the Rovers is Matt Stevens with 10 goals and 1 assist but he seems to be MIA, who knows, their WIKI page is a bloody mess, and he could have left for all I know, but I’m guessing he is injured as he hasn’t played for weeks.
We will then focus on who I consider to be the main danger, Christian Doidge their record scorer who rejoined on deadline day from Hibernian on a permanent deal. He scored 66 goals in 127 games for FGR in his first spell from 2016 to 2019 and considers this to be his real home. He hasn’t set the world alight on his return scoring 3 in 13 games with 2 assists, but he looks to be getting in his stride recently and may play a vital role if Rovers are to escape the dreaded drop.
Top of the assists is Kyle McAllister with 6 so far this season to go with his 6 goals and generally plays just behind Doidge and Jordon Garrick who incidentally netted a brace at Crewe on Easter Monday.
The current gaffer at Rovers is Steve Cotterill who is hugely experienced at this level with over 900 games under his belt and is starting to get a tune out of Rovers after the unfortunate 6 game spell in charge for Troy Deeney.
This is of course the third gaffer this season for the Green Army, Dave Horseman departed 5 days before Christmas in almost an ugly fashion to allow Deeney to take over, but his tenure ended abruptly when he firstly called out the team saying he would prefer to watch the Antiques Roadshow than attend an FGR game, and then threatened the 4th Official in a game versus Swindon Town saying he wanted to punch him in the head. Deeney at a later hearing admitted to using those words but denied his behaviour or language were threatening…..yeah ok Troy, whatever you think.
FGR owner Dale Vince had seen enough by now and Deeney was sacked and sent home to binge watch the Antiques Roadshow on the BBC iPlayer.
Cotterill joined in January and so far has seen mixed results with his record standing at P 14, W 5, D 2, L 7 giving him a Win Ratio of nearly 36% which is just over that imaginary line I keep mentioning.
A couple of former Dons will be involved in this one, firstly Jordan Moore-Taylor or JMT as he was more commonly called. He played 41 games over two seasons (2018-20) scoring 1 goal and then moving to FGR in July 2020. His career has been blighted by injuries, but he has still managed to play 30 games this term with 1 goal and 1 assist.
The other is a bit more surprising as I didn’t realise he was still playing, as 37 year old Richard Keogh joined the Rovers ranks on a free in February to add a bit of steel and so far he has played in tandem with JMT as the central defender in a back three. Keogh played 21 games for the Dons in the 2020/21 season.
Historically it couldn’t be much better when playing FGR, the details plus Dons scorers are shown below.
2017/18 – Forest Green 0 Dons 1 (LC) (Ariyibi)
2018/19 – Dons 1 Forest Green 1 (Aneke)
2018/19 – Forest Green 1 Dons 2 (Agard, Martin)
2022/23 – Dons 1 Forest Green 0 (Harvie)
2022/23 – Forest Green 1 Dons 2 (Eisa 2)
2023/24 – Dons 2 Forest Green 0 (Dean, Payne)
That’s a record of P 6, W 5, D 1, L 0, GF 9, GA 3.
The reverse fixture of this back in December was a comfortable 2-0 win which in reality should have been more as the Dons failed to capitalise on some gilt edged chances. Up the other end C Mac had nothing to do as FGR failed to register a single shot on target, the closest effort being a deflected header from a totally disinterested Troy Deeney, it was almost like he wanted to get gaffer Horseman sacked, and four days later he was, like I said earlier, it felt very ugly and contrived.
Despite FGR thrashing Crewe the bookies don’t fancy them, but they have still left a bit of value on the Dons if you fancy us to win.
Forest Green 7/2, Draw 14/5, MK Dons 5/6.
One other interesting price I found was Max Dean to score a Hat-Trick at a very attractive 66/1, got to be worth a pound.
Last week I said it would be a high scoring game, I’m just a bit annoyed I never called the draw as well, after all it was two teams that were struggling to win, a draw was the most obvious result.
For this game I’m going for the Dons to win, but I might not be so confident by the time the team news comes out at 2pm.
For the umpteenth time this season I’m going to say it again, we have to win and once again hope for slip ups from the others, in the past we have failed to capitalise so I’m hoping for once we get it right.
I do think though it’s going to be tight, and I can’t see either team keeping a clean sheet, and I am going to make a small prediction, in the final few minutes the keeper will come up for a corner, but whose keeper will it be theirs or ours.
Talking of keepers I nearly forgot, I really rate the FGR keeper Vicente Reyes who is a Chilean U23 keeper on an emergency loan from Norwich City. He came in on a 7 day loan in mid-February and like Kelly for us still remains at his loan club, so I guess like us they have extended the terms of the loan.
And very finally, it was rumoured earlier in the week that Tommo was out for the rest of the season, but that rumour looks to be unfounded following comments from MW on Thursday where he stated the injury picked up on Good Friday was not as bad as first thought and he will likely feature in the FGR game.
See you Saturday, bring a coat. 
WD
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Read the MELTDOWN after every game, no bullshit, just giving it straight
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