After the extremely disappointing home performance against Barnet it’s down the A13 for the away game at the Daggers.
Our East London neighbours are now managed by 35-year old Lewis Young (brother of Everton's Ashley Young) - he was initially appointed on a caretaker basis after Ben Strevens was sacked but got the job permanently on a 2.5 year deal last week.
They haven't played a league game since a creditable 1-1 draw at Forest Green Rovers (when Ryan Inniss equalised for the home side in the 95th minute) on 8th January (a game to which they took 19 away fans!). Since then they lost 3-0 at Millwall in the FA Cup, had a game postponed against Halifax (doesn't everyone?), and then last night beat the young Hammers 2-0 in the pointless National League Cup (total crowd 733 for a local derby!). Their form over the last league 6 games is pretty much identical to ours in every respect, but as they've played far fewer league games over the same period we maybe can't read too much into it.
They're currently 2 places and 1 point behind us in the table, but with a game in hand.
There has obviously been much speculation about their goalkeeper and captain, Elliot Justham, joining us with rumours that a contract extension would be triggered after 25 league games and their Director of Football was unwilling for this to happen. It's all gone a bit quiet on that front and the game on Saturday would be his 26th league game of the season so let's see how this plays out. As far as I can tell they have no former Shrimpers in their squad although Sam Ling has connections through his Dad, Martin, and Josh Rees is a former pupil at Southend High School for Boys.
From the other side, we have plenty of connections there with Josh Walker being reasonably prolific for them a few years ago and the whole of our coaching team - Kev, Daz, Benno and John Still all former employees of the Daggers either as players or managers.
There was a lot of discontent around Roots Hall last Saturday and the coaching team and owners cannot have been unaware of this - to have "you don't know what you're doing" sung by the Blue Voice when making a substitution must have been uncomfortable for Kev as was the booing when the team did their lap of (dis)honour after the game. There will be a packed out away end at Victoria Road so any negative feelings in the crowd are sure to feel even more intense.
Something needs to change from last Saturday - whether that's the existing players raising their performance, squad rotation, formation changes or new faces added to the squad, we need to wait and see.
So who would you choose to start for our nearest away game of the season, and what do you predict the result will be?
Our East London neighbours are now managed by 35-year old Lewis Young (brother of Everton's Ashley Young) - he was initially appointed on a caretaker basis after Ben Strevens was sacked but got the job permanently on a 2.5 year deal last week.
They haven't played a league game since a creditable 1-1 draw at Forest Green Rovers (when Ryan Inniss equalised for the home side in the 95th minute) on 8th January (a game to which they took 19 away fans!). Since then they lost 3-0 at Millwall in the FA Cup, had a game postponed against Halifax (doesn't everyone?), and then last night beat the young Hammers 2-0 in the pointless National League Cup (total crowd 733 for a local derby!). Their form over the last league 6 games is pretty much identical to ours in every respect, but as they've played far fewer league games over the same period we maybe can't read too much into it.
They're currently 2 places and 1 point behind us in the table, but with a game in hand.
There has obviously been much speculation about their goalkeeper and captain, Elliot Justham, joining us with rumours that a contract extension would be triggered after 25 league games and their Director of Football was unwilling for this to happen. It's all gone a bit quiet on that front and the game on Saturday would be his 26th league game of the season so let's see how this plays out. As far as I can tell they have no former Shrimpers in their squad although Sam Ling has connections through his Dad, Martin, and Josh Rees is a former pupil at Southend High School for Boys.
From the other side, we have plenty of connections there with Josh Walker being reasonably prolific for them a few years ago and the whole of our coaching team - Kev, Daz, Benno and John Still all former employees of the Daggers either as players or managers.
There was a lot of discontent around Roots Hall last Saturday and the coaching team and owners cannot have been unaware of this - to have "you don't know what you're doing" sung by the Blue Voice when making a substitution must have been uncomfortable for Kev as was the booing when the team did their lap of (dis)honour after the game. There will be a packed out away end at Victoria Road so any negative feelings in the crowd are sure to feel even more intense.
Something needs to change from last Saturday - whether that's the existing players raising their performance, squad rotation, formation changes or new faces added to the squad, we need to wait and see.
So who would you choose to start for our nearest away game of the season, and what do you predict the result will be?
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but we now find ourselves in a very different frame of mind. 
