Post-Match Thread and Ratings Colchester Utd 2 vs Southend Utd 0 CheckaTrade Trophy

[Colchester and proud!]

Totally amazed that to read that their were more Colu fans than Shrimpers someone needs a new calculator! !

Must have been done on ticket sales, mind you it is deceptive that West stand is bigger than it looks plus there are private boxes etc to be included. It was a bigger crowd than I expected, I think when people realised there were a lot coming from Southend the numbers increased a little, but who cares it was a non event game really!

 

[RHB]

Must have been done on ticket sales, mind you it is deceptive that West stand is bigger than it looks plus there are private boxes etc to be included. It was a bigger crowd than I expected, I think when people realised there were a lot coming from Southend the numbers increased a little, but who cares it was a non event game really!

So for for all of our giving it bertie big bollox before the game your lot go and win. Didn't your lot read the script properly? Outrageous.
The saving grace is that you can't play us in the league because you're in FL2, hee hee.
Well done CaP. Git.

 

[danburyshrimper]

Bishop 7 ... Couple of errors otherwise a good part of his development.
Elvis 8 ... Our man of match , love watching him rampaging forward, a natural athlete.
Dieng 6 ... Lost his man for 1st goal , we missed his midfield presence.
Moore 7 ... Played well , quality distribution, is starting to iron out his errors.
Hendrie 7 .. Has superb quality attacking, but useless when a winger runs at him.
McLaughlin 2 .. Anonymous. Such a great player so badly out of form. Whats wrong Macca?
Klass 3 ... really poor. Gave the ball away continuously, body languange needs improving too
Hutchison 5 ... quick feet , clever, but the game passed him by.
Baklova 5 ... Neat and tidy , i like him , but not good enough by him tonight
Robinson 3 ... No service but also didnt make himself available enough , very poor
McCoulski 3 ... His confidence from goals was left to drain away + now looks average again

Yearwood 7 ... When he came on he was our outstanding player, Shame he cant shoot straight.
Kightly 3 ... I wouldnt have brought him on. Just as bad as he was on Saturday. Pace has gone.
Gard .... Wish the lad well , met him + his Dad , really nice family, hope gets back v soon


Powell -- Difficult match and i'm glad he wasnt pressured to put Turner in , as if he had im sure he would be crocked for saturday. He had to put Dieng at the back , and we missed him . Zero creativity except a few wizardly runs and crosses from Elvis. The front 2 offered little , but as our midfield was so weak they had no help. Good experience for the youngsters and hopefully we will put out a much stronger performance and beat Southampton to progress in this tournament. Persoanlly i would have put Coker in a back 3 and pushed Hendrie further forward at wing back and had Cox behind front 2 , but Saturdays match is more important.

 

[Colchester and proud!]

So for for all of our giving it bertie b ig bollox before the game your lot go and win. Didn't your lot read the script properly? Outrageous.
The saving grace is that you can't play us in the league because you're in FL2, hee hee.
Well done Cap. Git.

Not realy a victory you played mostly young lads we did use fringe players but there were lots of first team players available on the bench if needed. We would be delighted to play you for real in league one or two, it is one of the few games in a long season that feels like it really means something! Too many games these days lack that prematch tension and atmosphere of yesteryear, the Essex derbies are still good fun! By the way I hate you all

 

[WESTY_SUFC]

Walked out before the end. Not something I do very often at all, but Powell definitely got it wrong last night. Going on about it being his first "Essex Derby", did no-one explain to him just how we feel about this no matter what competition it's in?

This was as bad a performance as the Cambridge one was good.

Midfield was totally powder puff, if he thinks Klass is anywhere near ready then I'm a monkey's uncle. There was literally no spark in midfield which is why both Robinson and McCoulsky were so isolated. The odd time they did get the ball to them to their feet, both did at least try to run with it but to little effect. The hoofball tactics also didn't work and were never going to - Prosser always was miles better with his head than with his feet, and his defensive colleagues were similarly tall.

Defence was interesting, individually, I thought they all did ok. Collectively, letting that first goal in was a total embarrassment. Ted Smith will have watched that, after doing shooting practice warm up, and thought he might get a game in the remaining fixture in this group stage.

Substitutions were all odd. With midfield struggling, the sensible thing to do would have been to put Turner on and allow Dieng to move up, and take either Batlokwa or Klass off, both of whom were absolutely dreadful. What happened? No, we take off Hutchinson who'd at least managed to tackle and pass a bit and put Kightly on. I appreciate he probably didn't want to risk Dru much but midfield was where we were being totally over-run - putting Turner on would have protected Dru for a bit longer. Or, alternatively Cox could have come on and played as a attacking CM. But no, after Kightly, we had Yearwood then Gard - and yes, of course I do feel sorry for the lad, but he really wasn't the answer.

Bishop - 6, felt he should have done better with the goals, and didn't command things
Bwonomo - 8, best player for us on the night overall
Moore - 7, didn't do much wrong and it says something when your CB is the one bringing the ball out of defence because there's no pass available
Dieng - 7, did ok but nowhere near as assured as he is in midfield
Hendrie - 7, thought he did well 1st half in particular, especially dealing with the tricky #2
McLaughlin - 6, played a wing back role for the 1st half and did an awful lot of defensive work...not terribly well
Klass - 5, just awful, had several chances for shots in the 1st half and only tried once
Batlowka - 5, ditto, kept giving the ball away and making short passes or trying killer balls which were easily intercepted
Hutchinson - 6, slightly better pass rate and made a few tackles
McCoulsky - 5, showed absolutely nothing to suggest he should be playing 1st team football
Robinson - 6, felt sorry for Theo, with little service and being closely marked, he couldn't use his trademark turn of pace to try and get behind them -on the few occasions he did there was no-one in the middle. He and McCoulsky weren't ever on the same page.

Subs:
Kightly - 5, wrong sub at the wrong time
Yearwood - 8, brought things to life but, by this time with no Robinson or McCoulsky on the pitch, there was no-one to try to feed
Gard - n/a

Was hacked off last night with this result, still hacked off this morning. Good officials though, for once. And, dare I say it, I do quite like their ground - not as soul less as one our first visit, and I thought their stewards were great too. That walk from the car park though - you wouldn't want to do that on your own if you were female!

It is hard to take when you spend time and money on going to games in this competition only for a very weak team to get put out.

 

[Jai]

But our fans are constantly banging on that we should play the youths? I am very confused.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

The real winner from this match was Chris Powell.

Completely vindicated with his (non) use of McCoulsky when everyone was clamouring for him to play and for playing Demetriou in midfield ahead of Klass (who he's doing a nice job of easing in from the bench) earlier in the season.

But this was a glorified u23 match. The only player we really needed to play well was Elvis as he's needed Saturday when Demetriou is on international duty and he was the pick. He got forward well and delivered some delightful crosses. He and we can take confidence from his display.

The likes of Hendrie and McLaughlin will be better off for 90 minutes under their belt - and Dru for his imperious cameo from the bench. Our young midfield was unsurprisingly overwhelmed before his introduction. They'll be better for the experience of quasi-first team football. Hutchinson and Batlowka reinforced my impression of them from pre-season: there's talent there (especially Hutchinson who seems to have a little bit about him) but they are some way off being ready for the first team. Appearances like this will hopefully move them closer. I'm not sure why Gard didn't start - he's apparently impressed for the u23s this year but his injury was the worst thing to come from this match (I also fear for Theo's confidence) - what terrible luck.

 

[Richard Hearn]

The crowd was 1516 and out of that total the Shrimpers had a magnificent total of 541 fans, great support for an away game in this competition.

543 actually, as two of us were sat in the West Stand (we had assumed, erroneously as it turned out, that the away fans would be stuck behind the goal, which I hate, so bought tickets for the main stand).

If it is any consolation the atmosphere and enthusiasm wasn't particularly electric amongst the yokels either and no one appeared particularly c ock-a-hoop about the win.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

It is hard to take when you spend time and money on going to games in this competition only for a very weak team to get put out.

It's like when people get upset about the Essex Senior Cup.

 

[tottenham541]

543 actually, as two of us were sat in the West Stand (we had assumed, erroneously as it turned out, that the away fans would be stuck behind the goal, which I hate, so bought tickets for the main stand).

If it is any consolation the atmosphere and enthusiasm wasn't particularly electric amongst the yokels either and no one appeared particularly c ock-a-hoop about the win.

And on the night out of all of them games played tonight our gate was the 5th highest, so many games had under 1,000 fans attend there games.

 

[Zeuss]

Disappointing overall but I’ll point out some positives regarding what SHOULD be our line-up for Saturday.Dieng looked totally confident at the back alongside the excellent Moore and Elvis who’d been merely ok suddenly became a dynamic menace as soon as Dru came on,changing the game by so doing and fed him probing passes.
Unfortunately the other seven contributed precious little—none of the youngsters Klass and Bishop rspecially,look anywhere near good enough yet,tho I sense Hutchinson might make it.
McL,Hendrie,McCoulsky,then Kightly were poor and Robinson was Robinson.

 

[Greebosan]

Not really much worthy of a rating there, I’ll pick out any points I feel are somehow worth a mention.


Despite the scoreline, defensively we were reasonable:


Oxley: 0 – I’d like to give him more, but he just didn’t turn up last night.


Moore: 8 - MOM by a country mile, a genuinely classy player. Provided some real purposeful runs forward.


Dieng: 6.5 - Clearly being played there as a test to see if he could slot in, did ok, certainly not a disaster, CP may now think he could pay CB in a pinch.


Hendrie: 6.5 actually looked reasonably good in the first half, tenacious and quite skilful when he had the ball – looked knackered by about 30 minutes though, clearly needs game time, faded quite rapidly I thought.


Elvis: 6.5 seemed to come alive when Dru came on and he could be reasonably confident that some accurate passes were coming his way. Spend a lot of the latter part of the second half standing on his own on the right in acres of space literally forlornly waving with both hands at his team mates in the vague hope of getting the ball. He should have had the ball far more regularly as when he did he made surging runs forward which caused their defence more problems that they’d had to deal with all game.


All the midfield (apart from Dru): 2 – absolutely lacking in any kind of energy or direction, hapless under quite heavy pressure, sloppy in possession, if a pass could be misplaced, they found a way to do it. Special mention sadly goes to Klass who I think was probably the poorest of the bunch last night – I can only presume that he is carrying an injury. He showed glimpses of a quality player with some pinpoint passing, but 80% of what he tried to do just gave the ball away, and it’s fair to say that he showed little desire to atone for his errors. McClaughlin is, in my opinion having a dreadful season, and CP's attempt to inspire him with some leadership responsibilities on the pitch did not work.

The reasons behind the recruitment of Bunn and Barrett are becoming clearer by the game.


Dru: 7 – changed the game when he came on, and we suddenly discovered some kind of urgency and grit in midfield, someone who was capable of holding on to the ball and distributing it well – sadly too little, too late.


McCoulsky & Robinson: I’m not going to rate these guys. They didn’t score, but then again they had no quality service – and both toiled away to little effect. McCoulsky in particular spent the whole game watching ball after ball sail hopelessly over his head or played into space a million miles in front of him at such a pace that he had no chance of getting there. In the first half he received a high pass he had no right to control but took it down under control with an absolutely superb touch before, almost inevitably, giving it away under the subsequent pressure.


Anyway, that was not the worst performance I’ve ever seen as some were saying as we filed out, but it certainly wasn’t great. I almost wonder if CP was making a point to those who clamour to give yoof a chance – on that showing he is absolutely right to be keeping them away from the first team. I also wonder if he was making a point to Klass who he refused to sub despite the fact that he was having a shocker – almost as if to say “mate, you reckon you’re good enough – prove it, show you can get your head up, correct yourself and can cope with having an awful game”. Not one of those players (apart from Dru, Elvis and Moore) will be able to use their performance as the basis to stake a claim in the match day squad.

The stadium was soulless, as most modern stadia are, but apparently they serve an excellent hot chocolate, according to the wife, and at least parking was easy.

 

[RHB]

Not really much worthy of a rating there, I’ll pick out any points I feel are somehow worth a mention.

The reasons behind the recruitment of Bunn and Barrett are becoming clearer by the game.

We had two permanent injury treatment beds available you mean?

 

[bluesfansince1952]

Game was on at 0235 am my time ,and, when I woke up and tuned in the game had already been underway for thirty two minutes. In hindsight perhaps I should have stayed asleep. Because I did not see the whole game no ratings but just some comments on the players based on what I saw.

Bishop looked uncertain at times and somewhat lacking in self belief. Self confidence is a must for a goalkeeper so unless he develops some he will be unlikely to reach his full potential.
Elvis for the most part looked like a first team player unlike most of the other non regulars. He does make some mistakes but never dwells on them. Looks to have the temperament to succeed.
Hendrie was decent but did nothing to suggest that he should be taking Coker's place. Nevertheless, on the night was one of the better ones.
Moore did not have his best game but still looked much better than most of his colleagues.
Dieng is a much more effective midfielder.
Klass was disappointing and was often let down by his distribution. This game was a big chance for him to make a statement but it has to be said he missed his chance.o
Batlowka played better before I switched on, according to the commentary. Did little while I watched.
Mc Laughlin struggled throughout.
Hutchison drifted in and out of the game and was more out than in. He did sometimes hint at better things.
Theo seemed to find it a struggle but it was not an easy night to play up front as the midfield gave the front two little support.
McCoulsky made little impression. He almost scored with a header when a Colchester defender somehow got back to clear off the line but did little else. His hold up play is poor and as a player is more similar to Theo than to Hopper. These games are of a lower standard than Division One and he did not suggest to me he would find it easy to bridge the gap. As a player he might benefit playing up front with Hopper but he surely could not be chosen ahead of Cox.
Subs:
Lightly was barely more effective than McLoughlin and his form is a matter of concern.
Yearwood looked a different class from the moment he came on and he was able to galvanise the midfield.
Gard's introduction was a disaster for the player as he suffered what looked to be a serious injury within moments of coming on the pitch. Very unlucky for him, and, hopefully the injury is not as serious as it first looked.
From what I saw of the game it is clear that some of our youngsters have obvious talent. However, to succeed as a professional they will need more than talent but wi
Shrimpers Chit-Chat

 

[bluesfansince1952]

It seems the end of my message somehow failed to be sent......the last paragraph should read:

'From what I saw of the game it is clear that some of our youngsters have obvious talent. However, to succeed as a professional they will need more than talent but will also need to develop self belief if they are to fulfill their potential. Of the youngsters on display last night Drew had it in spades and Elvis also showed it. None of the others did and the question they should be asking themselves is if they do not believe in themselves why should anyone else?
All professional sport is tough and it is often those with the greatest mental strength who are the ones who are able to carve out a career for themselves.'
Shrimpers Chit-Chat

 

[Colchester and proud!]

543 actually, as two of us were sat in the West Stand (we had assumed, erroneously as it turned out, that the away fans would be stuck behind the goal, which I hate, so bought tickets for the main stand).

If it is any consolation the atmosphere and enthusiasm wasn't particularly electric amongst the yokels either and no one appeared particularly c ock-a-hoop about the win.

None event game nobody gives a monkeys really!

 

[Colchester and proud!]

It seems the end of my message somehow failed to be sent......the last paragraph should read:

'From what I saw of the game it is clear that some of our youngsters have obvious talent. However, to succeed as a professional they will need more than talent but will also need to develop self belief if they are to fulfill their potential. Of the youngsters on display last night Drew had it in spades and Elvis also showed it. None of the others did and the question they should be asking themselves is if they do not believe in themselves why should anyone else?
All professional sport is tough and it is often those with the greatest mental strength who are the ones who are able to carve out a career for themselves.'
Shrimpers Chit-Chat

That's why many of our most promising young players are loaned out to top non league clubs. It is ok tippy tapping around at youth and under 23 levels but mens football is far more physical and it comes as a shock to many of them! There are lots of lads out there with great ability, but if they lack the discipline, mental strength and dedication to make it they will often under achieve.

 

[The Big Dady]

Oxley: 0 – I’d like to give him more, but he just didn’t turn up last night.

You are 100% correct, Oxley just didn't turn up, Nathan Bishop was in goal.

 

[OldBlueLady]

It is hard to take when you spend time and money on going to games in this competition only for a very weak team to get put out.

Listen, I've spent money going to games at all levels, we've been to all the Checkatrade games in the last couple of seasons so are well used to seeing "weak" teams put out. My gripe was that the majority of this team also played Cambridge in the earlier game, and the two performances were almost polar opposite.

 

[Colchester and proud!]

Listen, I've spent money going to games at all levels, we've been to all the Checkatrade games in the last couple of seasons so are well used to seeing "weak" teams put out. My gripe was that the majority of this team also played Cambridge in the earlier game, and the two performances were almost polar opposite.

You can only play as well OBL as the opposition allow you to