Forest Green Rovers (H) 10th Aug, 3pm

Match Centre Archive Match Centre 19/20
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"Green grow the rushes, O!"

(Traditional English folk song - Anon.)

This match marks a day of “firsts” … Our first home game under the chairmanship of Leigh Pomlett, and of course our first home game of this League 2 season. It’s also the first ever competitive meeting between Walsall and Forest Green Rovers, who have achieved League status under manager Mark Cooper’s guidance. Older members will recall Mark Cooper’s father Terry Cooper, who formed a very successful full-back partnership with Paul Madeley at Leeds United.

Forest Green also have their share of “firsts” - they were the first football club to use a robot lawnmower (guided by GPS), and the first football club in the world to be certified as “carbon neutral”. Owner Dale Vince is a “green entrepreneur”, and since his takeover in 2011 the club has embarked on several initiatives to conserve energy, such as the 180 solar panels installed on the stand roof.

Pre-season friendly fixtures are listed, together with their opening League 2 fixture when they won 1-0 against Oldham Athletic. This means that they are nominally above us in the League 2 table, if only on alphabetical order … Contributors to the Forest Green forum are evenly split in their predictions for this game, with wins draws and losses all featuring!

24 July Bristol City (H) Lost 3-4
27 July Bath City (A) Drew 1-1
3 Aug Oldham Athletic (H) Won 1-0

Will Darrell Clarke find room for his new Canadian striker acquisition? It may be that Caolan Lavery’s fitness levels need some work, and of course the standard adage is that you shouldn’t change a winning team. But Darrell Clarke’s methods won’t necessarily fit in to standard thinking, so all will be revealed on Saturday.

Prediction time - and having got the Northampton Town forecast spot on in terms of the result and even the goalscorer, the standard adage here is “quit while you’re ahead” - but donning the steel helmet and peering over the parapet let’s anticipate a 2-1 home win, with goals from Elijah Adebayo and Josh Gordon. Caolan Lavery to come on as a substitute in the 82nd minute and crash a screamer into the bar…

UTS

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3-1 home win.

Think one of Gordon or Adebayo will score, another set piece goal and Kinsella will get his first of the season.

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2-0 home win for me , although we will need to be at our best. These are a good outfit, but maybe no better than Northampton.

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3-1 victory in front of 5114 fans, Adeboyo with 2 and Gordon with the other.

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These are a good side, won’t be an easy game that’s for sure.
1-1.

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Another big test against a good side. I’ll go 2-0 Walsall with goals from Pring and Kinsella.

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0-0. Will be an entirely different game to Saturday as FGR are known for their possession based style.

Can see both teams cancelling each other out unfortunately.

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I reckon we might see a change to 433 or 4231.

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1-0 once again with adebayo with the goal, in front of a crowd of 4483

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Bloody hell Welsh that’s going to leave a hell of a mess in the stadium suite i.e broken glass, damaged window blinds etc.

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FGR have a kit made from bamboo, so they’ll be looking to give us a caning. However, we have DC who will plot us to a 2-1 win, goals by Adebayo and Pring in front of 5765 fans.

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1-0 if Clarke is fit (is there any word on that?)

1-1 if not.

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Clarke (the manager version) does not give out any information about injuries as he feels it gives an advantage to the opposition.

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Ah right. I’d be surprised if he is fit, he was head and shoulders the best defender when we had to take him off.

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Hopefully should be okay. Masi was asked on Twitter a couple of days ago and replied that it was just a dead leg and ‘he’s fine.’

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Ah decent!

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1-1 for me…a very close game as FGR make it very difficult for us to create and score.

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I was surprised to see they were one of the fancied teams with the bookies.

Could be a banana skin this one.

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1-0 to the arsenal… Sorry to the walsall. Can see lots of these this season. Especially away from home plus another clean sheet from robo to build his confidence.

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I agree,until they get the other striker in and gel together as a team,there will be a lot of 1-1/1-0 & 0-0 scorlines.

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