David Horseman ‘sickened’ by way Forest Green conceded during Grimsby comeback

Posted Sunday, November 19, 2023 by PA

Forest Green boss David Horseman blamed ‘individual errors’ as his side threw away a two-goal lead in a 2-2 draw with relegation rivals Grimsby.

Gavan Holohan and Donovan Wilson cancelled out Kyle McAllister’s first-half double in an entertaining encounter.

The Mariners produced a second-half comeback to take a point which left Rovers in the bottom two.

“We will replace them (the players), but we haven’t got that luxury yet,” said Horseman. “They try so hard but it’s no good if you don’t win the games.”

Grimsby started well and were inches away from the opener when Harvey Rodgers poked an effort goalwards following a corner but Jordan Moore-Taylor cleared the ball off the line.

Town goalkeeper Harvey Cartwright produced a fine reflex save after he was wrongfooted by Jacob Maddox’s deflected cross.

McAllister almost opened the scoring with a curling long-range effort that cannoned back off the crossbar.

Cartwright had to be alert to deny Maddox following a fortuitous bounce of the ball landed at his feet, but Grimsby’s shot-stopper was out quickly to smother.

The impressive midfielder was not to be denied from the penalty spot in the 37th minutesafter Callum Jones was deemed to have been tripped.

McAllister doubled Forest Green’s lead when he collected Tyrese Omotoye’s pass and produced a lobbed effort over Cartwright and out of the reach of Grimsby’s despairing defenders.

Grimsby halved the deficit when Gavan Holohan’s goalward effort went into into the back of the net following a deep corner, although Wilson may have got the final touch.

Wilson then capitalised on Reece Welch’s poor touch and slid past James Belshaw in the Forest Green net.

Rovers almost won it late on but Omotoye’s header came back out off the upright and Sean Robertson’s stoppage-time effort flew over Cartwright’s crossbar.

Horseman added: “The first half was superb, the manner of the goals that we conceded was sickening.

“It’s been a trend that the cross towards the far post that they end up scoring from. We have got good quality players to come back but they’ve been out for far too long.”

Joint-interim manager Ben Davies said: “We were disappointed going in 2-0 but we gave a reaction in that second half. We had to instill the belief in them and then have that conviction.

“We’ve worked a lot on set-plays; it’s something we’ve been disappointed with.”

Wilson’s first came just seconds after coming on as a second-half substitute, something Davies was pleased to see.

“The statistics of substitutes who win the points is through the roof and we’ve highlighted that.

“When you’re sat in there at 2-0 down, we were thinking ‘is it going to be one of those days?’ But we hammered away and could have had a couple more in the end.”