Albion head to The Bolt New Lawn on Wednesday for only our second competitive game against Forest Green Rovers in the second round of the Carabao Cup, kick off 7.45pm.
Team news
Graham Potter has indicated that he will make changes to the side that beat West Ham 2-0 in the Premier League on Sunday.
At his pre-match press conference the head coach said, "We like this competition. It's a chance to look at guys who haven't played so much and look at some of our youngsters as well and give them a feel of what we're trying to do. We have got some good options but we know it's going to be a tough game, we are respectful of our opponent."
Jeremy Sarmiento and Jakub Moder are the only absentees through injury.
The opposition
Forest Green won promotion to League One for the first time in their history last season, but then lost the manager who had guided them there when Rob Edwards joined Watford.
Edwards was replaced by Ian Burchnall, who succeeded Graham Potter when our head coach left Swedish club Ostersunds to return to the UK. Burchnall came back to England in 2020 and was appointed manager of Notts County. He guided them to the National League play-offs last season before joining Forest Green in May.
Forest Green, who only joined the EFL five years ago, have started the season steadily with four points from their first four games. They kicked off the campaign with a 2-1 win at Bristol Rovers and held Lincoln City to a 1-1 draw, but have lost both home matches, 2-1 against Ipswich Town and 3-0 to Plymouth last Saturday. They reached the second round of the Carabao Cup by beating Leyton Orient 2-0 at The Bolt New Lawn.
Stats and facts
- This will be just the second ever competitive meeting between Forest Green Rovers and Albion, with the Seagulls winning a Football League Trophy match 2-0 in October 2003 previously.
- This is just Forest Green’s third match against Premier League opponents, with all of them coming in the second round of the League Cup. They drew 0-0 with Bournemouth in 2019-20 (losing on penalties), before a 3-1 loss at Brentford last season.
- Albion have won nine of their last 10 League Cup matches against sides from the third tier or lower, with the exception being a 2-1 loss to Walsall in August 2015.
- We have only failed to reach the third round of the League Cup in one of their five seasons as a Premier League side, doing so in 2018-19.
Match officials
Referee: Tim Robinson; Assistants: Andrew Fox & Craig Taylor; Fourth official: Oliver Langford.
Ticket information
All our tickets for this game have sold out.