Remember our last update?
“We are slightly worried about how we’re going to stack up against League Two opposition”
“He will be hoping for a strong start to the season to silence any of the critics immediately”
Well…
August was something of a reality check for young Sylvan. He came into League Two full of hope, with dreams of a dynamic brand of football tearing everyone apart. He quickly came to find out that Forest Green are predicted to be in a relegation dog fight for a reason. While not playing especially poorly in any of these games the team were repeatedly being beaten over the top by pacy forwards and not creating enough at the other end to cover up for the defences leakiness. The system was repeatedly tinkered with without much success until the Checkatrade trophy when our initial diamond system was scrapped in favour of a 4-3-3 with wingers. The change was enough to provide Sylvan with his first competitive victory (Shut up, the Checkatrade trophy counts!) and something for him to build on in September…
That was unexpected. The new formation led Sylvan to runner up in the September manager of the month and is still currently unbeaten (a 4-1-4-1 was rolled out against Cambridge, mistakes were made). Things are definitely looking up after a pretty rocky first month for Paulsson, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. There has been a little hardship though, on loan winger Will Randall went down with broken ribs and is expected to be out for 2-3 months, leaving the squad very thin on the ground when it comes to suitable wingers. Also you may have noticed just how many penalties we’ve scored so far this season (don’t bother going back and counting, it’s five), that’s probably not going to keep up so the lads are going to need to find other ways to get the ball into the net at some point. And this leads us to Christian Doidge, oh Christian. Our wonderful sponsors over at Gloucester Live (I expect a cease and desist any day now) convinced us all that we had a goal machine on our hands, when instead we’ve had 4 goals in 12 appearances, two of which came from massive goalkeeper botch jobs letting him walk it in. Sylvan is going to have to use all his tactical nous to find a way to get him scoring as the team head into October currently sitting 10th in the table.
The good folks at Gloucesterlive.co.uk are back and are kind enough to give us their two early front runners for Rovers Player of the Season.
Charlie Cooper
Some may have questioned Cooper’s motivation to remain at Forest Green prior to the season after Paulsson usurped Cooper’s dad Mark as manager of the club. However, those doubts are a thing of the past after the 20 year old’s electric start to the season. Initially grabbing his new boss’ attention with a stunning strike from outside the box during preseason, Cooper has gone onto become a mainstay in the side so far this year and has contributed with 2 goals, 2 assists and currently leads the side in chances created with 7.
Scott Laird
Perhaps unlucky not to have made the ‘Preseason Player Spotlight’ list at the beginning of the season, the left back is arguably Rovers’ most talented player and having a great start to his 17/18 campaign. Clearly benefiting from being the club’s penalty taker, Laird has slotted home a perfect 5 of 5 from the spot so far this season. On top of this he can probably consider himself unlucky to have only notched one assist despite ranking second on the team team in chances created with 5 (behind Charlie Cooper’s 7).
The Life and Times of Sylvan Paulsson 