Jed Ward’s loan situation, January business and a return to the New Lawn for Mark Cooper confirm

“He joined us with the intention of staying for the season, but he was only there to cover them in case their goalie, Josh Griffiths, was called up. That’s how that one would be.”

“Their goalkeeper has performed very well for them this season, like Jed has for us. If Bristol Rovers decide to do that, there isn’t a lot we can do about it.

“However, I think their goalkeeper is doing pretty well so I don’t anticipate it. My gut feeling is Jed would like to stay and finish the season off, I spoke to his mum and dad and I think they would like him to stay which is always handy. I think he is happy and enjoying it.”

Clubs in the Football League are free to seek signings even if the National League’s transfer regulations prevent them from having a proper transfer window. “We are always looking, it is a very difficult one here with what we have got, what we have built, and interrupting anything,” Cotterill said when asked if any business would be done at the club in the upcoming month.

Therefore, it seems to me that Forest Green feels pressured to add one or two more players whenever the window is open. In reality, I prefer to work with the players I now have and help them improve, but if someone were to become available who I believe would be beneficial for the future as well as for the present, the club would undoubtedly assist me in that endeavour.

The New Year’s Day game sees former Rovers boss, Mark Cooper make his second return to The New Lawn three years on after leaving the club.

“I have looked at them in a couple of games this week and for me they have mixed it up a little bit, I think that is the art of it. You have got to be able to mix your game up, if you only play one way, you are easy to play against. I am not a big fan of this ‘we have got to do it a certain way’, I think you have got to be able to do everything.

“You look at Man City over the years, don’t tell me they don’t do a bit of everything. Everybody talks about their great football, many a time you would have seen their goalkeeper all of a sudden get it out of his feet and catch the striker’s eye and he has struck it straight in behind their back-four and the striker goes and scores, what do you call that? I call that great football if he has done that, you don’t always need to pass it out, we have done both and I have seen Yeovil do both this week.”

Rovers have had a break between Boxing Day’s trip to Tamworth and New Year’s Day, something of which that hasn’t happened for a good while because of the Football League usually playing a game between the two.

On the brief pause between the two, Cotterill remarked, “I looked at it the other day and it was quite strange really when the Football League were playing games and we weren’t.” When you go back to the league table, you can see how many games we and they have played, and you can see that we are currently ahead of the Football League.

This will be about our 30th game of the season; if you count the cup games we have already participated in, we have accomplished a great deal. The boys had a lovely weekend off, and it was nice to have that brief respite. We have now returned to work for a few days.

Prior to the match, there are numerous personnel links between the two clubs. While Dom Bernard, Matt Worthington, Charlie Cooper, and Alex Whittle played for Rovers, Joe Quigley and Tom Knowles each played for Yeovil.

In their most recent League Two encounter, Forest Green defeated the Glovers 3-0 at home in 2019 thanks to goals from Christian Doidge, Junior Mondal, and Lee Collins.