Forest Green Rovers appoint former Watford captain Troy Deeney as head coach ahead of their League 2 match against Gillingham on Friday

Gillingham will be playing Forest Green Rovers just two days after they changed their manager.

Former Watford striker Troy Deeney was announced as the new permanent man in charge of the League 2 strugglers on Wenesday after they parted company with David Horseman.

Forest Green lost 3-0 at Blackpool in the FA Cup on Tuesday night and have picked up just two points from their last five league games.

The change means the Gills will be heading to the New Lawn Stadium in the dark over how the new man will set the team up, but head coach Stephen Clemence insists they will just focus on themselves.

Clemence said: “I’m disappointed for David, first and foremost, I know David and did my pro licence with him a number of years ago.

“Troy is going to come in and get his chance now. He has had a great career and has moved into the coaching world and he will be trying to get his boys fired up now.

“He has been there all season (as a player), he has been involved in the squad and they will all know him, but it is not something I can focus on. We have to control what we are doing here at our football club and we will find out how they play and how they go about things on Friday night but until then we just worry about ourselves.

“It doesn’t affect our plans too much, we know what their squad is, what players they have got, but it’s about what we do, we have to take our game to them and go and try and get a result.”

Deeney, 35, joined Forest Green earlier this season as a player coach and has played 18 times for them this season, scoring four which included a hat-trick against Notts County in September. He came off the bench at Blackpool on Tuesday night.

Deeney said: “One thing I can assure everyone is that we will work our very hardest