Forest Green manager Steve Cotterill marked where their opposition Southend United could hurt his team ahead of the game at The Bolt New Lawn this Saturday.
“Up top. They’ve had two strikers a lot of late. They’ve ended up going from 3-5-2 to 4-1-3-2. So obviously the middle of the pitch has been a threat for them.”
Standing 11 points behind league-leaders Barnet, and third in the National League, Rovers aim to cut the gap and give themselves a chance to achieve automatic promotion.
He also named three players his team have to watch out for on Saturday afternoon: James Golding, Gus Scott-Morriss and James Morton.
Cotterill described Golding as a Swiss army knife. “He ends up playing centre-back and then all of a sudden he’s a six in midfield, then he’s an eight, then he’s a 10, then he’s playing one twos on the edge of the box and he scores a goal.
“Gus Scott-Morriss, I don’t know whether he has scored 15 goals, I want to say it might be more than that from right-back, which is a big achievement. They’ve got Morton in the middle of the park, who’s a good footballer.”
đđ¸#WeAreFGRđ pic.twitter.com/sdzA8aER1j
— Forest Green Rovers (@FGRFC_Official) March 14, 2025
With a demanding schedule and their 2-1 victory last Tuesday against Sutton United, Cotterill also talked about how he has to rotate his side, especially up front.
“There’ll be certain games that I’ll pick certain strikers for. That’s what will happen. And I think they’ve pretty much accepted that.
“I think I’d get to a point where sometimes, the majority of the time I’ve spoken to them, when we have a period of games where it’s all condensed, I don’t feel as though I need to tell anyone when they’re in the team or out the team, because they’ll just be knowing that I’ll believe it’s freshening it up a little bit.”
In terms of injuries, Cotterill explained that Harvey Bunker and Cian Harries will be ready. “That’s been a bit of a bonus. We’re slightly stronger than we were in midweek.”
Ben Tozer had to be substituted off against Sutton midweek at the 54th minute, but he will also be available for selection. “He just had a back spasm [on Tuesday]. And we couldn’t get rid of the spasm.
“He’d done well, to be fair, to stay on the length of time that he did. He wants to play. He’s a great lad, a good leader for us, but he’s trained okay, so we don’t have any problems there.”
On the other hand, the manager was not completely sure about Kyle McAllister’s return, explaining he is going to be “going to be nip and tuck.”
