Football – England – Blue Square Premier
Saturday 1st December 2012 – Kickoff: 1500hrs
Fourth placed Forest Green Rovers take on BSP basement dwellers Nuneaton Town at The New Lawn on Saturday afternoon in what looks a fairly straight-forward open and shut case for the hosts to take all three points here.
Despite a recent run of four straight defeats, Forest Green have improved in recent weeks with wins over play-off rivals Dartford and Stockport County along with taking a point at Barrow in a 2-2 draw two weekends ago. Turning now to home form and Forest Green bounced back with a win over Stockport following back-to-back losses to Tamworth and Luton Town while their overall home record stands at 5-2-2 21/10.
It’s also worth noting that Forest Green have scored in nineteen consecutive home matches and they average 2.33 goals per game at home which is a statistic that could be played out this afternoon against a poor Nuneaton side. Matty Taylor (7 goals, 2 assists) and Jan Klukowski (7 goals, 4 assists) are the leading scorers for the hosts, but they also have players like James Norwood (4 goals, 5 assists) and Magno Vieira (2 goals, 2 assists) who are dangerous in the final third.
Visitors Nuneaton Town couldn’t be further apart from their hosts today in terms of goalscoring as the midlanders have managed a total of just 8 away goals on their travels so far this season; a dismal away record of 1-2-6 8/20 means that Nuneaton are not only the lowest goalscorers away from home in the BSP they are right up there in terms of goals conceded – not a good picture when you’re up against a goalscoring side like Forest Green.
Despite recording their first league win in twelve matches two weeks ago at home against Stockport County, Nuneaton have lost their last four away matches on the bounce going down at Lincoln City 1-2, Southport 1-3, Luton Town 0-2 and Kidderminster 0-1 and they’ve failed to score on four occasions.
Nonetheless, they do have a few dangerous attacking players in Adam Walker (8 goals), Andy Brown (7 goals, 4 assists) and James Armson (4 goals) but bear in mind they’ve kept just two clean sheets (which was at the beginning of the season when confidence was higher) but have failed to keep a clean sheet in their last six away matches.
Forest Green therefore have a great chance to take all three points on offer today and they should have too much quality on show against the promoted Blue Square North side Nuneaton at the New Lawn today; a 3-1 win for the home side I reckon.
Pick: Forest Green Rovers AH-1 @ 1.70 bet365
