The Green Room: When we gel I think good times are ahead (From Gazette Series)

Forest Green manager Dave Hockaday gives his thoughts after the 3-0 win over Wrexham on Tuesday night

2:00pm Thursday 19th August 2010 in Sport

I'VE been aware since my time at Cirencester of the rise of Forest Green and their perennial struggle to stay up so I came in to change this.

I've brought in my own players and I ask to be given time and to be judged on my team.

There's no reason why we can't push forward and see better, more positive times and the supporters of Forest Green deserve a ray of sunshine.

Everyone feels something different but it's one game at home. If we keep doing that we can make it the new dawn.

It will be a bumpy ride initially with the new faces and we're still missing big players, but given time when we truly gel I think good times are ahead.

The first thing you look out for is a clean sheet so to keep a clean sheet against a team hotly tipped to make the play-offs is pleasing.

To score three goals against a team which barely conceded in pre-season and didn't concede against Cambridge, I'm delighted.

We’ve got a big game on Saturday against Gateshead and we’ve got to make sure we apply ourselves like we did on Tuesday night.

They have gone full-time, they’ve got a big budget and a big squad and I’ve got a lot of respect for their manager Ian Bogie.

It will be a tough game, it won’t be like Tuesday night – that was a great night.

We have to make sure we perform as well as we can and I maintain it will take a good team to beat our team.

We've set the bar, so the standard cannot drop below that.