Post-Match Thread and Ratings Southend United 1-1 Port Vale

[Fairport]

We seem to have the inability to break teams down at home when they come looking to defend, Port Vale are one of the 3 three teams I feared (on another thread), they will be fighting for their lives, and as such dangerous. If they were at home it would have been a totally different game, one I think we would have won, as the onus to attack would have been with them.
Our away games I think will be crucial if we are to maintain any play off chance.

It's a common situation at all levels of the game, teams keep things tight and are difficult to break down, after twenty five minutes the home fans start to get impatient. The key is to score an early goal, easier said than done. We have produced similar performances away from home over the years and ground out a goaless draw.

 

[shrimperjon]

The more I look at the league table the more I get frustrated. We've dropped so many points recently against teams we should be beating. What frustrates Me more is seeing Fleetwood in the mix, ****ing Fleetwood!

 

[Timlin1]

Directly the team was announced we all said he has gone with no width. Brown wanted to get Atkinson back in the side and sacrificed width to do it. How many times did we see Coker berating Timlin for not co wrong him when he went forward and the Demitrou having a go at Atkinson. I'm sorry but we started the season with this sort of formation and it was a disaster. One of the midfielders has to go to make room for a winger. The front 2 were knackered Cox didn't look fit and Fortune looks like a man feeling his age. We bring the pace on in the 2nd half and somehow forgot we didn't have Ranger up front we were lobbing high balls up front when Robinson and Cox needed the ball to feet. Nouble looked overweight and slow when he came on so brought nothing to the side. What was going on when we had the ball in the Vale penalty area and turned into a team of the chuckle bros to me to you to me just have a shot. The defence had some very shaky moments and I'm another who holds their breath when the ball goes near Smith yes he is learning and that is good but still think we needed to get in another experianced goalie. All in all a poor home game back to the bad old days at start of season. Wordsworth on his game is brilliant his quick flicks bringing in other players is brilliant to watch he makes the midfield tick but we haven't seen that for at least 4 games and his passing was woeful. Bristol Rivers will be on top of their game next week and we need some big performances just hope we are brace stuck with width and pray Ranger is fit to lead the line. On a plus note the sun is meant to shine in Bristol so no soaking on that awful terracing.

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

Directly the team was announced we all said he has gone with no width. Brown wanted to get Atkinson back in the side and sacrificed width to do it. How many times did we see Coker berating Timlin for not co wrong him when he went forward and the Demitrou having a go at Atkinson. I'm sorry but we started the season with this sort of formation and it was a disaster. One of the midfielders has to go to make room for a winger. The front 2 were knackered Cox didn't look fit and Fortune looks like a man feeling his age. We bring the pace on in the 2nd half and somehow forgot we didn't have Ranger up front we were lobbing high balls up front when Robinson and Cox needed the ball to feet. Nouble looked overweight and slow when he came on so brought nothing to the side. What was going on when we had the ball in the Vale penalty area and turned into a team of the chuckle bros to me to you to me just have a shot. The defence had some very shaky moments and I'm another who holds their breath when the ball goes near Smith yes he is learning and that is good but still think we needed to get in another experianced goalie. All in all a poor home game back to the bad old days at start of season. Wordsworth on his game is brilliant his quick flicks bringing in other players is brilliant to watch he makes the midfield tick but we haven't seen that for at least 4 games and his passing was woeful. Bristol Rivers will be on top of their game next week and we need some big performances just hope we are brace stuck with width and pray Ranger is fit to lead the line. On a plus note the sun is meant to shine in Bristol so no soaking on that awful terracing.

I think you have got it right in your summary. We needed a winger BUT from previous starts MacGlashen may not be the player - may be as sub - but not the start. CALLING for MACL!!!
We weren't as bad as early season games BUT it was worrying that a few "off colour" performances carried on for so long with, seemingly, only the Vale goal kicking proper urgency into our play.
In defense of PB he was, from 10 minutes in, cajoling the players to get it forward quicker BUT it didn't happen AND PB did make his subs earlier than the usual last 5/10 minutes.

 

[mrsblue]

I think you have got it right in your summary. We needed a winger BUT from previous starts MacGlashen may not be the player - may be as sub - but not the start. CALLING for MACL!!!
We weren't as bad as early season games BUT it was worrying that a few "off colour" performances carried on for so long with, seemingly, only the Vale goal kicking proper urgency into our play.
In defense of PB he was, from 10 minutes in, cajoling the players to get it forward quicker BUT it didn't happen AND PB did make his subs earlier than the usual last 5/10 minutes.

Fortune was shot to bits,how on earth he stayed on for 55 is way beyond me !....Nouble was well hmm uh oh appalling,I'm being kind too,Cox looked a mile off the pace and could still be playing now and still not score.

Phil gave these dudes lengthy deals and they were knackered...age or injury or a combo of both...who knows.

Your defence of Phil is at best worrying.

 

[TTS]

Fortune was shot to bits,how on earth he stayed on for 55 is way beyond me !....Nouble was well hmm uh oh appalling,I'm being kind too,Cox looked a mile off the pace and could still be playing now and still not score.

Phil gave these dudes lengthy deals and they were knackered...age or injury or a combo of both...who knows.

Your defence of Phil is at best worrying.

Phil bashing again, how delighted you must be to be able to hit the key board again ! It's been lovely and enjoyable without you bashing away all through the weekend !

And before you ask, yesterday was appalling, I said the same thing in the ground. Gillingham away, first half as appalling, again I said sonin the ground. MAF for your information was excellent against Peterborough, but yes he needed arest, with Theo in the ranks we have that option.

You must be delighted to be able to commence the Brown out campaign again and start throwing out your "facts" for that very reason.

Just so I know, what other lengthy deals apart rom MAF are you berating here ?

 

[mrsblue]

Phil bashing again, how delighted you must be to be able to hit the key board again ! It's been lovely and enjoyable without you bashing away all through the weekend !

And before you ask, yesterday was appalling, I said the same thing in the ground. Gillingham away, first half as appalling, again I said sonin the ground. MAF for your information was excellent against Peterborough, but yes he needed arest, with Theo in the ranks we have that option.

You must be delighted to be able to commence the Brown out campaign again and start throwing out your "facts" for that very reason.

Just so I know, what other lengthy deals apart rom MAF are you berating here ?

Stupid post !

I stated the obvious yet people like you only look for confrontation ,you even agreed !

Brown out campaign...never mentioned anything of the sort.

I only comment on games I have seen.

What "facts" are they then.

the reason why I hardly post is because people like you see the posters name and wade in with utter nonsense,it's tiresome.

 

[Somerset Ex-TTB]

Anyone that thought the choir were good? They would be lip syncing to a pre recorded track, just concentrating on silly dance moves. There were no microphones near them lol. So obvious.

However they were most entertaining thing on offer all day.

 

[TTS]

Right, not reading my other discussion with my favourite part time supporter, my take on the game yesterday.

Its apparent that Jermaine isnt doing enough to install confidence as a starter, he was quite poor with his start at Gillingham, but there is no doubting his impact as a sub ( which is a good thing to have, ie a player that can change the game upon his introduction ), until such time however, we are sorely missing McLaughlin ( who prior to his injury was in the top 3 as a our player of the season ). Without him, you will always struggle with 4 central midfielders playing/starting. Personally I dont have an issue with Atko tucking in a lot, as this was a key part of the positive run, however, Timlin kept either tucking inside of Coker, or was behind him, you cant have your supposed wide man constantly not there, ie wide. His natural instinct is to tuck in, saying that, I thought he was fortunate to stay on as Wordsworth display again for me was way under what we should expect from him. When the football is flowing and the game is going your way, he is a wonderful person to have, pulling strings, but when you need tackles to be made and sleeves rolled up, he isnt.
Thommo for me was stand out player again, he really is continuing to grow into a superb Center Back. I thought Ferdinand was ok, not his usual sharpness, but our problem was creating nothing else. Lenny had an awful 10 min spell in the second half, couldn't pass for toffee, however he soon returned with that monster track back and tackle in our area.
I have no arguements with the free kick against us, what I question is, why was Demetrious given a foul 5 minutes prior on the edge of the box, refs inconstantancy this season has been awful.
Yesterday was a tired performance, a positive I would take is the seeing McLaughlin out before the game, be great to get him back. Also, yep poor day at the Office for Cox, these will happen. I would have maybe started with Theo up top as opposed to MAF, as Theo was superb when he was introduced at Gillingham last Saturday.
Yep, I think we will struggle to maybe make the play offs now, but I dont see the same fallout as I did from last season, the squad is good enough and with the aforementioned left winger on his way back, I would hope to see more wins than defeats over the last few games.
Scores for me, 5/6's and Thommo on 8 as the standout.

 

[TTS]

Stupid post !

I stated the obvious yet people like you only look for confrontation ,you even agreed !

Brown out campaign...never mentioned anything of the sort.

I only comment on games I have seen.

What "facts" are they then.

the reason why I hardly post is because people like you see the posters name and wade in with utter nonsense,it's tiresome.

"Your defence of Phil is at best worrying " .......

I dont give facts, you do, you always do, your facts are well known on this board.

Other posts are balanced, with 2 sides, yours never are.

You love confrontation, you look for it, hence why you word your posts the way you do, you always have.

Your history is well known on here, so please dont play the hard done by .

The reason you've hardly posted is because we've lost 2 in 22 , if we had won 2 in 22 you'd be on here 24/7 !

 

[mrsblue]

"Your defence of Phil is at best worrying " .......

I dont give facts, you do, you always do, your facts are well known on this board.

Other posts are balanced, with 2 sides, yours never are.

You love confrontation, you look for it, hence why you word your posts the way you do, you always have.

Your history is well known on here, so please dont play the hard done by .

The reason you've hardly posted is because we've lost 2 in 22 , if we had won 2 in 22 you'd be on here 24/7 !

There were 64 replies before you entered this thread,you as usual could only see my input(2 replies from me so about 3% of the total)...fact.

2 in 22.... Great,but only 17points from the last 36,I had the ammo from the Gills game,yet guess what I never ever replied on that thread...fact.

You stated Fortune was knackered ditto Cox,yet you wanted to berate me for offering the same view before you....fact.

No doubt somebody will say I'm thread diverting very soon...so this is my final post on this topic.

 

[shrimper-james]

Right, not reading my other discussion with my favourite part time supporter, my take on the game yesterday.

Its apparent that Jermaine isnt doing enough to install confidence as a starter, he was quite poor with his start at Gillingham, but there is no doubting his impact as a sub ( which is a good thing to have, ie a player that can change the game upon his introduction ), until such time however, we are sorely missing McLaughlin ( who prior to his injury was in the top 3 as a our player of the season ). Without him, you will always struggle with 4 central midfielders playing/starting. Personally I dont have an issue with Atko tucking in a lot, as this was a key part of the positive run, however, Timlin kept either tucking inside of Coker, or was behind him, you cant have your supposed wide man constantly not there, ie wide. His natural instinct is to tuck in, saying that, I thought he was fortunate to stay on as Wordsworth display again for me was way under what we should expect from him. When the football is flowing and the game is going your way, he is a wonderful person to have, pulling strings, but when you need tackles to be made and sleeves rolled up, he isnt.
Thommo for me was stand out player again, he really is continuing to grow into a superb Center Back. I thought Ferdinand was ok, not his usual sharpness, but our problem was creating nothing else. Lenny had an awful 10 min spell in the second half, couldn't pass for toffee, however he soon returned with that monster track back and tackle in our area.
I have no arguements with the free kick against us, what I question is, why was Demetrious given a foul 5 minutes prior on the edge of the box, refs inconstantancy this season has been awful.
Yesterday was a tired performance, a positive I would take is the seeing McLaughlin out before the game, be great to get him back. Also, yep poor day at the Office for Cox, these will happen. I would have maybe started with Theo up top as opposed to MAF, as Theo was superb when he was introduced at Gillingham last Saturday.
Yep, I think we will struggle to maybe make the play offs now, but I dont see the same fallout as I did from last season, the squad is good enough and with the aforementioned left winger on his way back, I would hope to see more wins than defeats over the last few games.
Scores for me, 5/6's and Thommo on 8 as the standout.

Agree 100% with this

 

[Bearded Shrimper]

we were poor yesterday. we didn't get many basics right even. tactically i thought we were poor. i don't like the midfield diamond - we have the players to play it but we end up trying to thread the eye of a needle and we're not good enough. we also don't make use of our full backs. it needs to be basically a back 3, so Leonard sits in front of the defence, then the full backs push on and GET THE BALL, then when they get the ball they need to do something with it. so often yesterday they got the ball, cut back inside then lost it.

aside from tactics we didn't do other things well. we didn't seem to have the desire - sometimes you just need to want it and we didn't look like we were that bothered.
then you have to do basic technical things - like pass the ball to someone, then trap it, then do something with it that isn't cut back inside and fall over.

The most important moment of the match is that Cox miss. He scores and the whole game is different. if he hasn't trained all week then fair enough coz he wasn't at his best.

the subs were absolutely right, Timlin should have been removed instead of Wordsworth, i don't get why people are complaining about that.
I'm not sure Robinson was the right sub coz they were playing deep but fine. but you got to use the people you got. Glash comes on, gets fouled, the guy gets a yellow, and we don't give Glash the ball again all game!

we repeatedly gave the ball away, stood still rather than giving people options, were totally static rather than fluid and seemed to be stuck down with colour-blindness as we kept passing it to yellow shirts.
we had more of the ball, they did more with it.
We really miss a left winger coz we're too narrow and then there's no space in the middle. then Glash comes on and we don't use him.

some random thoughts
Smith is young and, while not doing great at the moment, let's let him develop and see. he's probably in too early, but we're not going down so let's see if he learns.
Ferdinand didn't look fit, but kept passing the ball behind Coker and getting it wrong.
Leonard is immense, does all the dirty work for us.

we scored from our one good move, we should have done more of that.

Annoying, frustrating.

I think our season is probably over, but if we finish in the top ten that's a decent season. we should be looking at promotion next season and/or the one after, that's more realistic

 

[RHB]

It's all about expectations isn't it? After Rochdale, Fleetwood and Scunthorpe we certainly looked as if we were the real deal. Oxford and Peterborough away showed that maybe we could win ugly and sometimes well on the road. Northampton disappointed and now Port Vale as well. I haven't bothered about Millwall or Gillingham as defeat is painful.

So..........the squad is still pretty much the same as during the good times of Rochdale etc and what we need now is to show the steel necessary to steady the results. I think it's too early to write off our chances of a play-off place, especially with the return of McLaughlin very imminent and Ranger yet to hit full fitness and form. I may be being a bit naïve, but better that than ringing the Samaritans just yet. COYB

 

[THE SEVENTIES NORTH BANK]

Anyone that thought the choir were good? They would be lip syncing to a pre recorded track, just concentrating on silly dance moves. There were no microphones near them lol. So obvious.

However they were most entertaining thing on offer all day.

I thought the rock choir was great. Looking from the South Upper, the dance moves looked really good. I also liked the way they joined in a few Southend chants the first half. I was a bit disappointed when most of them went home after their half time stint. I thought that was a bit of a snub to SUFC. Maybe they didn't realise how cold it was going to be.

 

[RHB]

Anyone that thought the choir were good? They would be lip syncing to a pre recorded track, just concentrating on silly dance moves. There were no microphones near them lol. So obvious.

However they were most entertaining thing on offer all day.

Nearly on a par with the male pigeon strutting his stuff on the roof of the East Stand. Puffed up neck ready for the cute little female pigeon he was stalking. Suffice to say that he scored long before half time. I had hoped it was an omen and would spur on the Blues forwards. A forlorn hope unfortunately.

 

[WESTY_SUFC]

Phil bashing again, how delighted you must be to be able to hit the key board again ! It's been lovely and enjoyable without you bashing away all through the weekend !

And before you ask, yesterday was appalling, I said the same thing in the ground. Gillingham away, first half as appalling, again I said sonin the ground. MAF for your information was excellent against Peterborough, but yes he needed arest, with Theo in the ranks we have that option.

You must be delighted to be able to commence the Brown out campaign again and start throwing out your "facts" for that very reason.

Just so I know, what other lengthy deals apart rom MAF are you berating here ?

Don't feed it TTS. It's fishing for an argument. It has already been proven woefully wrong about ever player. Im so glad we get to watch players like Cox and MAF rather than Isaac Layne and Jason Williams (the worst strike force ever suggested on Shrimperzone :hilarious::hilarious::hilarious:)

 

[Kris]

Hang on, no-one complained about the midfield diamond when we outplayed Scunthorpe using it. I don't blame the formation as such because the players' movement was still good and we got into good areas and had decent options. Unfortunately the team's collective radar was way off and our execution was godawful. When we did complete a pass it was largely underhit leaving players, especially our full-backs, having to collect it rather than being able to take the ball in their stride.

I don't think Vale's tactics played as big a part as people are suggesting because it's not like they came to kick us like a lot of League 2 teams did and they didn't snuff out our attacks with clever tactics or crucial interceptions because they didn't need to. I just think too many players had an off-day and our manipulation of the ball was utterly terrible.

 

[Gt Yarmouth Shrimper]

Hang on, no-one complained about the midfield diamond when we outplayed Scunthorpe using it. I don't blame the formation as such because the players' movement was still good and we got into good areas and had decent options. Unfortunately the team's collective radar was way off and our execution was godawful. When we did complete a pass it was largely underhit leaving players, especially our full-backs, having to collect it rather than being able to take the ball in their stride.

I don't think Vale's tactics played as big a part as people are suggesting because it's not like they came to kick us like a lot of League 2 teams did and they didn't snuff out our attacks with clever tactics or crucial interceptions because they didn't need to. I just think too many players had an off-day and our manipulation of the ball was utterly terrible.

Best post on this thread.

 

[mrsblue]

Don't feed it TTS. It's fishing for an argument. It has already been proven woefully wrong about ever player. Im so glad we get to watch players like Cox and MAF rather than Isaac Layne and Jason Williams (the worst strike force ever suggested on Shrimperzone :hilarious::hilarious::hilarious:)

Knew you would be along....do one mug.