Bristol Rovers vs Forest Green Rovers Predictions

• Bristol Rovers kept 10 clean sheets in their final 12 home games of last season.
• Matty Stevens – Forest Green’s 23-goal leading scorer from last season –  is out until 2023 and has not been replaced.
• Bristol Rovers beat a decent-strength Stoke City side 2-0 in their last pre-season game.

Gas are still cooking after surging to promotion

Forest Green may lack a cutting edge when they travel to the Memorial Ground to take on fellow League One newbies Bristol Rovers on Saturday. The Green, who went up as champions, lost 23-goal leading scorer Matty Stevens to an ACL injury in April and his recovery timeframe will probably keep him out for the first half of the season.

The Nailsworth outfit are an ambitious club, but they face a very tough campaign after losing their head coach and arguably their three best players over the summer. New boss Ian Burchnall seems a good fit, but he will do well to get them off to a flying start against a Gas team that produced a late surge to take the third and final automatic promotion berth.

Joey Barton has a settled squad that could kick on with another loan addition or two, but they seem like justifiable favourites for three points here given their home form of 2022 and recent pre-season activity. The Gas beat a Stoke City side with some household names in it 2-0 last week and even found time to miss a penalty.

Barton’s boys can keep the Green away from goal 

The fact that they kept another home clean sheet should not be a surprise as Barton’s backline blanked ten of their final 12 league opponents at the Memorial Stadium last season. Connor Taylor has returned to Stoke – for now – but his centre-back partner James Connolly has been tied down while the full backs and midfielders know their roles and work hard.

Momentum is huge in football and it seems like Bristol Rovers are carrying plenty of it into the new campaign while Forest Green have lost their way a little. Their goals-per-game average dropped from 1.72 before Stevens’ injury to just over 1.1 for the last seven league fixtures. Hence the recommendation here is to oppose the visitors in the goal markets with Bristol Rovers’ excellent clean sheet record encouraging a bet on under 1.5 Forest Green goals.

The hosts, who scored 18 goals in their last nine home games of 2021-22, can run out 2-1 winners on Saturday.