Ian Burchnall: Forest Green head coach hopes return of injured players will boost team

Josh March's penalty was one of two saved by Cheltenham keeper Luke Southwood to knock them out of the Papa Johns Trophy

Forest Green Rovers head coach Ian Burchnall says he hopes the team will "look very different" in a few weeks after being knocked out of the Papa Johns Trophy by Cheltenham.

The Gloucestershire club were beaten by their local rivals 4-3 on penalties after drawing 1-1.

Forest Green are without a number of key players due to injury.

They are also bottom of League One and have not won in their past seven league matches.

"You saw that we finished the game with [defenders] Corey O'Keeffe and Jacob Jones in midfield tonight, which is far from an ideal situation for us," Burchnall told BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

"We're on the way to getting a few big players back for us and hopefully the picture looks very different in a couple of weeks.

"The benefit to us is it's one less game. Of course we'd have liked to have gone all the way in it, but with the squad being as small as it is the demands are quite high."

Jordan Moore-Taylor, David Davis, Reece Brown, Udoka Godwin-Malife, Ben Stevenson, Matty Stevens and Armani Little are among those on the sidelines.

Prior to their recent League One match with Oxford, Burchnall said the team were "fire fighting" and "desperate to get through to January".

Former Aberdeen midfielder Dylan McGeouch was signed on Tuesday on a deal until the end of the season and he was put straight into the starting line up for the cup match.

McGeouch had one training session with the team and played 60 minutes before being substituted off.

"The last time he played 90 minutes was October last year," Burchnall said.

"I think to try to expect him to get through 90 minutes after one training session was probably a bit too much."

'Weather the storm better'

Forest Green went 1-0 up against Cheltenham before conceding an equaliser, something Burchnall said his team have to improve on.

They next face seventh-tier Alvechurch in the FA Cup second round on Saturday.

"I think we've got to learn to manage being ahead better. There's quite a few games now we've been ahead, Fleetwood, Morecambe, Burton you could name a few that we've been pegged back in," Burchnall said.

"I think we've got to learn that we will have to weather a bit more high risk from the opposition and try to take them on the counter and gain some territory that way.

"I think we still played a lot of short passes to feet in the second half which probably invited a bit more pressure so we've got to be a little smarter when we go 1-0 up."