Football Season Guide

Forest Green will be hoping that this is the season in which they can really make the next step and become serious challengers for promotion. After a few years of healthy investment, Dave Vince has given the manager Dave Hockaday the license to get a few more payers that can bring the club to the next level and now Rovers should definitely be taken seriously. They looked like serious challengers for a while last season but from February onwards, they really faded badly and stopped scoring goals. As a result, from a team that looked capable of even getting the top spot, they finished on a complete whimper and outside the play-offs. Hockaday took a lot of criticism for the crash of the team and many expected him to be sacked in the summer but Vince has shown considerable faith in his manager and allowed him to start a third full season in charge. Danny Wright and Andy Mangan are the standout signings and these two strikers have a proven record at this league, scoring lots of goals and being part of promotion campaigns. They will add a whole new level and presence up front and should form along with Jamie Norwood a pretty dangerous trio. Anthony Barry was signed up in midfield to provide a bit of muscle and discipline along with the creative talents of Yan Klukowski. Forest Green look well stacked in defence too and generally, their squad is as good and deep as any in the division. The question mark is how Hockaday will make them work together and whether he can hold his nerve at the business end of the season, like he clearly failed to last year. One suspects that if Forest Green are not among the frontrunners at the start of the campaign, he may well be dispensed of.