The Voice - Match preview Forest Green Rovers vs Bradford City Tuesday 28th November @ 7:45pm

EFL LEAGUE TWO FIXTURE #20

Tuesday 28th November 2023 15:00
Forest Green Rovers (23rd) vs Bradford City (14th)
The New Lawn

22/23 Results:

Did not play

Head-to-Head Form: WDWDL (most recent first)

Won: 2
Drawn: 2
Lost: 1

Current League Form:

Bradford City: WLLLL
Forest Green Rovers: DDLWL

FOREST GREEN ROVERS

Forest Green Rovers have the ignominy of being the worst performing side out of the four teams relegated from League One last season – which perhaps shouldn’t be surprising, given Forest Green Rovers finished 24th, a full 17 points adrift of the next worst performing side. The fall from grace following their League Two title win in the 21/22 season has been dramatic – and the eco-friendly club could soon find themselves losing their EFL status if things don’t start to improve.

The loss of manager Rob Edwards, now in charge of Premier League Luton Town, has been a major blow to Forest Green Rovers, and none of Ian Burchnall, Duncan Ferguson or former Southampton ‘B’ team coach David Horseman have been able to come close to replicating Edwards’ feats. Under current manager Horseman, Forest Green Rovers have managed just 6 wins from a full 24 league and cup encounters, drawing a further 6, and losing a full 12 games.

Recently, though, there have been green shoots of recovery. With only 2 defeats in their last 10 league and cup games combined, Forest Green fans might be keeping their fingers crossed that they have turned a corner. On Saturday, FGR gained a point on the road at Walsall, and prior to that salvaged another point in a relegation 6-pointer against fellow strugglers Grimsby Town. Tranmere Rovers may have thumped FGR 3-0 in the previous League Two clash, but home wins against Crawley Town (2-1) and Colchester United (5-0) have injected some home in the Gloucestershire sides ambitions of remaining a football league club.

Minor caveat: amid the 10-game run of improved results, Forest Green Rovers just happened to have played Scarborough Athletic twice in the FA Cup having drawn the initial tie 1-1 before winning the replay 5-2, but they've also drawn consecutive EFL Trophy ties against Walsall (1-1) and Brighton and Hove Albion U21’s (0-0). Still, Bradford City manager Graham Alexander won’t be holding those results against FGR, having employed the EFL Trophy as a morale-boosting exercise himself recently. A 5-2 win over Scarborough on a replay might not seem impressive, but it was valuable target practice for Horseman’s players, with 5 separate players getting on the scoresheet: never a bad thing!

Speaking of goalscorers, FGR have some bad news to contend with as top scorer Matty Stevens (5) struggles with a knee injury. Stevens isn’t alone in the medical room, as fellow forward Matty Taylor (1), winger Nathan Holland, and defender Marcel Lavinier are all out with hamstring problems. Goalkeeper Luke Daniels, who had made 9 league starts this season, is also out with a quad complaint. Callum Morton and Reece Brown are 2 more players temporarily sidelined, though winger Jordon Garrick and strapping centre back Ryan Inniss are closing in on increasing game time. To say David Horseman has had his hands full would be an understatement!

Troy Deeney (4 goals) is the top scorer currently available to Forest Green Rovers, the Premier League veteran and star player leading Kyle McAllister (3) and the injury-hit Callum Morton (3) as the only other players with multiple league goals to their credit this campaign. As Walsall manager Mat Sadler recently noted, at full strength, Forest Green Rovers have a very capable team at this level: getting their best XI on the pitch at any one time, though, has been a real struggle.

Tyrese Omotoye has been the man leading the line for Forest Green Rovers recently, but with just 1 goal from 17 league appearances, but the 21-year-old Belgian hasn’t adapted to life in the lower leagues quite as well as FGR fans might have hoped. The reliance on the former Norwich City man has been more out of necessity than form, but with the experience of Troy Deeney back in the side, alongside Kyle McAllister – who recently signed a new deal at the New Lawn – gives Forest Green hope of breaching the Bradford City backline on Tuesday night.

In terms of playing style, Forest Green Rovers are a side that will seek to command the lion’s share of possession, but that style has yet to prove successful for the injury-ravaged side. They remain bottom of the EFL League Two ‘home’ table with just 7 points from 10 games, worse than their average of a point-a-game on the road. That said, Forest Green Rovers have lost only 1 of their last 6 league and cup games combined at the New Lawn, again hinting at an upswing in form. Barrow are the only side to go to Forest Green Rovers and win since late September, a near 2-month period. Contrast this to a run of 6 straight league defeats across September and the early portion of October, and the contrast is quite dramatic.

Is Horseman beginning to string performances together? Or do recent results require an asterisk alongside them, outlining ‘lesser’ opposition in both league and cup?



Walsall 0 – 0 Forest Green Rovers

BRADFORD CITY

What a difference a week makes!

A 5-1 win over Barnsley in the EFL Trophy has proven to be the springboard to a much-needed win at Valley Parade on Saturday afternoon, with Graham Alexander’s men shutting out John Coleman’s Accrington Stanley in a dominant (ish) 1-0 win. Coleman bemoaned his side’s inability to stamp their own authority on the game, particularly in the second half, which saw Bradford City launching direct balls and free kicks into the Stanley area with relative impunity. Breaking out of their own half proved a real issue for Accrington, as the centre back trio of Ciaran Kelly, Ash Taylor and Matty Platt mopped up time and again under ever-diminishing pressure from a young forward line of Korede Adedoyin and Josh Andrews.

More of the same, then, will be sought at The New Lawn, and Alexander’s newly installed tactics that regularly make use of long diagonal balls and wing back raids could prove effective – but only if the big back 3 can provide that defensive platform on which to build. With Forest Green Rovers’ front line racked by injury, the pressure will certainly be on for a repeat performance and another clean sheet.

Improved performances from Richie Smallwood and Lewis Richards lately complement the ever-consistent Brad Halliday and workmanlike attacking style of Jamie Walker, and while Andy Cook remains off form, there are signs that Tyler Smith might just be ready to take a lot of the weight from the big man’s shoulders. Another goal, his sixth in six league and cup outings, saw Smith execute a sublime lob over Accrington goalkeeper Joe McCracken on Saturday, adding to a hat trick against Manchester City U21’s, a goal against Barnsley, and his first league goal of the season against Barrow. All of this has led to City snapping a four-game losing skid in the league, and maintaining a 100 % win rate in the EFL Trophy.

Back-to-back wins for the first time since mid-October have Bradford City fans hoping Graham Alexander can produce, at worst, a short-term spike in form, or preferably a run towards the top half of the table. Facing second bottom Forest Green Rovers might seem like a gift in terms of timing, but City’s loss against another struggling side in Sutton United combined with FGR’s recent upswing in form might just temper expectations slightly.

This won’t be easy for Bradford City, but a win has to be expected: can Tyler Smith and a repackaged back line prove Graham has seen something in those players that Mark Hughes might have missed?



Bradford City 1 – 0 Accrington Stanley

 

THE BREAKDOWN

7/4: Forest Green Rovers
12/5: Draw
6/4: Bradford City

Bradford City head to Forest Green Rovers as the betting favourites despite being the away side: not something one might have expected prior to the win over Accrington Stanley. That said, second bottom FGR have the worst home record in League Two and are headed for a second successive relegation as things stand: worst case scenario, they could even be looking at finishing in last place for a second successive season! It’s no wonder, then, that the betting algorithms have cut through Rovers’ improved form and the narrative of players returning from injury to paint City as the more likely winners.

For their part, though, City have lost their last 3 away games, conceding 10 goals across that short spell. MK Dons knocked 4 past a managerless and rudderless Bantams side, before Sutton United shocked the form table with only their 3rd win of the season. The Notts County game, the only away game under Graham Alexander so far, saw a Jekyll and Hyde-style performance: a 4-0 drubbing in the first half, following by a recovery in the second half to halve the deficit: 4-2 was the final score, but it did little to imbue the supporters with real optimism.

It was, then, the Barnsley EFL Trophy tie that seems to have kickstarted a very mini (for now) revival. 3 points at the weekend gives Bradford City some additional breathing room from those at the foot of the table, and a win on Tuesday evening would be massive in terms of the club’s League Two survival, potentially opening an 11-point gap – which might just refocus minds on the play offs once more, with the gap currently standing at a mere 6 points.

That is how quickly fortunes can change in such a competitive division. There is, in truth, very little between the middle-of-the-pack sides, even if a gap has begun to form between the top 6 and the rest. If there is only 1 play off place left to play for (and it’s still early days), then City will certainly expect to at least be in with a shout.

Defeat here, though, and things will look bleak again. Not only would Forest Green Rovers relish 3 points against a potential relegation rival, but they will be desperate to boost their chances of survival ahead of the midway point of the season. With a game in hand over all 5 of the sides around them at the foot of the table, all is far from lost for the former League One side, though as the division’s second lowest scorers (behind only Gillingham) and an absence of key forwards and midfielders, the pick here is a narrow 1-0 win for the Bantams.

While City are barely any more potent going forward than sides like Forest Green Rovers and Gillingham, the Bantams haven’t drawn a blank since a 2-0 defeat to Middlesbrough in the League Cup. They remain reliable in scoring at least 1 – and usually just 1 – a problem Graham Alexander will continue to try to rectify.

PREDICTION:

Forest Green Rovers 0 – 1 Bradford City