Tuesday night saw Forest Green Rovers pick up their first three points under new manager Steve Cotterill.
It was certainly a shock victory, not necessarily due to Forest Green’s league position but more so that it came against high-flyers Barrow. Going into the match, Barrow sat in fourth and in touching distance of a place in the automatics yet those hopes of moving up the table were dashed after a disappointing loss.
The Green would take the lead through Kyle McAllister midway through the first half yet would be in front for less than 10 minutes after Cole Stockton found a stunning equaliser for the hosts. Emmanuel Osadebe would however have the final say, with his second-half strike being the difference between the two sides.
It was a huge shock, with that being just Barrow’s second loss at Holker Street this season, though they cannot have too many complaints about the result. Forest Green were on top for large parts of the game and were deserved winners. They may have even had more had it not been from some inspired goalkeeping from Paul Farman in the Barrow net.
Unsurprisingly, that will go down as the best performance so far under Cotterill and arguably the club’s best performance of the season. It now certainly gives them something to build on prior to travelling to Crawley Town on Saturday.
That win against Barrow ended the club’s 15 game winless run and they’ll be wanting to prove that the result was indeed no fluke. As a result Forest Green actually climbed off of the bottom of the table due to Sutton United losing to Wrexham and they’ll now have Colchester in 22nd in their sights.
Having said that, they do still have a six point gap to make up but improvements have been easy to see since Cotterill came in. The board will potentially be kicking themselves that they didn’t bring in the current manager sooner as he has been available for the entirety of the season.
Instead they opted for Troy Deeney for just 29 days between December and January. His spell can only be described as a disaster with the ex-Watford striker failing to win a single one of the six games he was in charge of.
That decision may well have backfired for the club with the gap to safety widening as a result, they’ll now be looking to make up for lost time with Cotterill getting his first win on the board. It’s an uphill battle to survive this season though, but one that isn’t exactly out of question just yet.
The two teams that sit directly above Forest Green are Colchester United and Grimsby Town, both six points ahead. There’s then a further four point gap to 20th place Doncaster Rovers who look out of reach currently. The Rovers will have their eyes on Colchester and Grimsby who’s form has certainly fluctuated as of late and there’s no reason as to why they can’t be caught.
Potentially the most important game in Forest Green’s season is when they travel to Grimsby on the 2nd of March, a win there will greatly boost their chances however a loss may just send them back to the National League.
As mentioned, it is an uphill battle, but the club do still have a say in their Football League status and it is in their hands. Utilising this winning momentum which clubs like Sutton, Grimsby and even Colchester to an extent around them have struggled to do, could prove pivotal to their survival chances.
We’ll perhaps look after the weekend clash with Crawley Town completely differently, but at the minute, it seems as if Forest Green are going the right way and could well beat the drop.
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