Forest Green Preview

This Saturday sees the return of the Boro to Broadhall Way as they take on Forest Green Rovers in the FA Trophy, a competition the club won back in 2007. It’s been quite a while since Stevenage last played at home due to the recent poor weather, bit it’s expected that the pitch will be in good enough condition to welcome our Gloucestershire opponents after 2 recent attempts at getting the league game on. Both games in the end had to be called off and has now been arranged for Tuesday March 3rd at 7.45pm.

After last weekend’s 3-0 victory away at Weymouth, Boro moved up to 3rd in the league and are now 14 games unbeaten in all competitions. The midweek fixtures in the Blue Square have changed things slightly with regards to the table, with Cambridge now occupying 3rd place and Boro back in 4th. However, Boro are 3rd in the BSP form table behind only Oxford and leaders Burton Albion, having taken 20 points from the last 24 available. Rovers won their last game just last night, beating struggling Northwich Victoria 3-0 at the New Lawn. Two goals from John Hardiker and another from Alex Lawless gave Jim Harvey’s side the 3 points and helped them climb above Woking in the table, with 2 games also in hand on the Cards.

With FGR playing in the week, then Boro will have a slight advantage in that the players should be fresher. In all honesty though it may be that the Boro players are still a bit rusty after not much competitive football so far this month. Postponements have led to Stevenage playing just the one game so far this month, that being the 3-0 win over Weymouth at the weekend. On the injury front, Graham Westley seems to have a fully fit squad to choose from. A strong reserve side beat Ipswich reserves in the week and some of them could feature against FGR. Jon Ashton could also make his debut after joining last month from Grays.

If Boro can continue to play how they have done in the last month or so then I think they will beat Forest Green pretty heavily. Burton were hammered 4-0 in the last round and there is no reason why a similar score can’t be recorded on Saturday. With Steve Morison in the form of his life at the moment and a settled team around him supplying chances, things are looking up at Broadhall Way and it’s highly possible that Graham Westley and Stevenage will be looking forward to a semi-final draw come 5pm Saturday night.

Prediction: Boro 4-0 Forest Green Rovers