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jamessufc88

Youth Team
Joined
Sep 22, 2006
Messages
127
I was impressed with a much improved display this week.  The lads fought and battled hard, and had more desire than they showed in the Cardiff game.  If they pull up their socks and continue to play like that, results will come. Didn't think much of Coventry and don't expect them to be challenging on the basis of that performance. Felt we outplayed them in large chunks of the game and the only worse team I've seen this season home or away is Stoke.

Now to break it down.  Going forward, I thought we looked superb.  The short passing style was on show tonight and it looked quite tasty.  There was excellent movement and we always seemed to look dangerous.  Harrold was brilliant, causing nuisance, winning free kicks (rather than conceding them), flicking the ball on with his head and holding it up to wait for support.  Freddy looked very dangerous and his movement, especially for our second goal, was fantastic.  Special mention to Gower too, who bombed forward, beat his man regularly and got some good crosses in, as well as switching to the other wing and cutting inside to spray out some low passes.

However, it's well and good looking good going forward, but it ain't going to work until we stop conceding at the back.  Although we looked better today, there were a few too many occasions when we let McKenzie and Adebola get in behind us and if it weren't for a superb save from Flavs in the first half, we would have been a goal down.  Who knows what could have happened from there?  The right side of defence, for me, is a particular problem.

So here goes my first attempt at ratings:
Flavs - 7 - SUPERB save and follow-up smother in the first half from a McKenzie header after Cameron was afforded too much room on the right to get a cross in.  Made a few good blocks at feet and commanded his area well.  Couldn't have done much for their goals.  Looked like his vision was blocked for Hughes' goal, as was it in the melee in our defence for Adebola's.

Francis - I'm going to give two ratings here - defensive 5 - attacking 7 - I think he looked superb going forward.  Took their full back and wide midfielder on, bombed forward quickly and whipped in some superb crosses from deep positions. His defending was a different matter.  Gave away the penalty out of desperation after he got skinned by Cameron, who kept switching over from the right wing, and got skinned by him again in the build up to their third.  I would give serious consideration to keeping him and Hunt in the team but swapping them over as I think Francis, after his attacking display tonight, would be great out wide in midfield.

Hammell - 7 - Solid.  Made some good tackles (surprisingly) and did not see too many stray balls from him tonight.  Looked great again going forward, sprayed some good passes and supported Gower well.

Barrett - 7 - Looked better tonight than against Cardiff.  Dealt reasonably well with McKenzie, got in some good clearing headers and made a good few forages forward too.  I fear that his lack of height is a problem for us against teams with big forwards, as was shown when he marked Adebola sometimes. Also deflected the ball into the path of Adebola for his goal. Bad mistake there. Unlucky to get wicked deflection on Hughes' shot for the first Coventry goal.

Prior - 7 - Pleasantly surprised.  I didn't see him put a foot wrong.  Solid but not spectacular, got in some good interceptions and headers.  Great flying header from a corner in the second half that smashed against the upright. Massive improvement.

Hunt - 6 - For me, quite ineffective going forward as he isn't adventurous enough, but he looked good when coming back to support the defence and, in particular, Francis.  Hence the reason why I'd swap them.

Maher - 9 (MOM) - Superb tonight.  Very commanding and imposing performance.  Looked busy, passing was great, especially for Eastwood's goal (great vision and judgment before providing the defence splitting pass).  Also looked helping out the defence, made one especially good block and tackle in the second half from McKenzie before setting up an attack.  Also, great shot in second half, never seen him hit a ball so hard.  One of the goals of the season had it gone in.

Guttridge - 7 - Nothing spectacular. Solid enough, sprayed some good passes.  Felt he got caught in possession too much and dalleyed on the ball a little.  Needs to think on his feet more quickly and look for the movement of others.

Gower - 8 - Ran Maher close.  I don't know where the guy gets his energy from.  He is ALWAYS running, closing down and hassling the opposition.  Great passing and looked good with ball at feet going forward, successfully beating his opposite number and whipping in some dangerous crosses.

Harrold - 8 - I've been impressed with this guy.  Wasn't sure how effective he'd be starting, but I was impressed.  He was a huge nuisance tonight.  Getting in some great headed flick-ons, which Freddy could have been more alert too.  Also held the ball up superbly well before looking up and passing to an oncoming man in a good position.  Seems to have a good footballing brain, and certainly ruffle some feathers.

Eastwood - 8 - Only criticism is that I feel he needs to be alert to Harrold's flick ons.  Should drop off a bit and wait rather than going for the same ball, as he often did tonight.  But the understanding will come with time and I think this partnership is the way forward.  Fantastic defence splitting run to score his second goal, beat the offside trap, full of running and closing down and looked good with the ball at his feet.

Subs:

Campbell-Ryce - 7 - Looked good when he came on in place of Hunt.  Surprisingly saw him beat a man ONCE and attempt a cross, only to have it blocked.  Looked busy and dropped deep often to fight for repossession of the ball.

Hooper - 6 - Not enough time to shine when replacing Harrold.  Chased balls to no avail, and only got hold of ball once out wide right only to get slide tackled.  Our attack looked weak when he came off, as he is two similar to Freddy and we had no height and nuisance like we did with Harold.  Needs to be deployed out wide right or just behind a front two.


Feel free to criticise/agree and be constructive!
 
Pretty much agree with your summation, think flavs did well, even though we conceded 3 again.

Thought our left side looked dangerous second half, right side not so much.
 
Think you're being very generous with your ratings although I think my disappointment with the result of this game has taken the shine off our attacking intent. In fairness, we did get it wide really well at times and put a lot of balls in the box but couldn't convert them. The major gap in our attacking ambitions was Hunt's inability to offer anything attacking. Not his fault, he's just not a right winger or really a right midfielder.

Apart from that, we did well and were well worth our two goals.

I thought Prior was solid. I think the less you see Prior, the better a game he has had. His experience and character still may prove to be vital this year and at least we weren't done through the middle again. Hammell was ok defensively but I thought Barrett was fairly overwhelmed and as soon as Adams noticed that Francis was struggling defensively, MacKenzie suddenly started attacking the left all the time. Have to give it to Adams as this tactical change won them the game.

Does little to defend the fact that we have still conceded three.

I would imagine it might be worth some time in training learning to scramble balls out of the box.

On a more humourous note, I expect Coventry will be practicing heading backwards because they were inexplicably terrible at them!!

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[b said:
Quote[/b] (sufcintheprem @ Oct. 13 2006,23:02)]Think you're being very generous with your ratings although I think my disappointment with the result of this game has taken the shine off our attacking intent.  In fairness, we did get it wide really well at times and put a lot of balls in the box but couldn't convert them.  The major gap in our attacking ambitions was Hunt's inability to offer anything attacking.  Not his fault, he's just not a right winger or really a right midfielder.  

Apart from that, we did well and were well worth our two goals.

I thought Prior was solid.  I think the less you see Prior, the better a game he has had.  His experience and character still may prove to be vital this year and at least we weren't done through the middle again.  Hammell was ok defensively but I thought Barrett was fairly overwhelmed and as soon as Adams noticed that Francis was struggling defensively, MacKenzie suddenly started attacking the left all the time.  Have to give it to Adams as this tactical change won them the game.

Does little to defend the fact that we have still conceded three.

I would imagine it might be worth some time in training learning to scramble balls out of the box.

On a more humourous note, I expect Coventry will be practicing heading backwards because they were inexplicably terrible at them!!

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Fair enough - everyone is entitled to their opinion, lol! I don't think I was that overly generous. I thought I gave a fairly good reflection of the game. Perhaps you were right with Barrett, and maybe he deserved more of a 6.
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We did play well though, for spells of the first half we played the best football Ive seen this season.

Thought second half we attacked really well and came very close to scoring another on a few occassions.

Leon Mckenzie was the difference though, we didnt seem to know how to deal with him.
 
Could not disagree more on Gower. Thought him drifting inside all the time left us exposed on the flank time and time again.
Overall the team gave pretty much there all and that is what worries me the most, where are the points going to come from? We stay in the relegation zone and come January Freddy will be off and heaven knows what's going to happen then.
Tilly please please please make your subs a little earlier. At 2-2 JCR comes on could we of been 3 points to the good. I suppose we shall never know.
 
The ratings from jamessufc are on the generous side. I thought we were unlucky to lose but the pace and arial ability they had up front meant that we were always going to struggle given recent form.

I am not sure that Gutts had a good game - I thought he was largely anonymous. Barrett and Francis both looked weak at the back. Hunt was negativity personified. Gower never got going.

Plus points were Maher and Eastwood, and Flavs kept us in it at times. The rest were ok-ish.

The lino on the West Stand side was b******s. He failed to make any decisions, looking all the time to the equally squitty little irk of a ref for guidance. I am sure he was genuinely short sighted. And he looked ready for his pension.

Oh well, forget this. Onwards and upwards to Burnley.

Upi the Blues
 
Another 3 goals conceded....albeit a deflecton and a dubious penalty.........my main concern is that despite a brilliant midfield and another class goal by Fred we allowed a 2nd rate team to put 3 past us!
 
Pity, as things started so brightly. A much improved performance from us tonight but we've still come away from the match with nothing because of our complete inability to defend.

No JCR, Paynter or Clarke to blame tonight. I hope Francis isn't this week's scapegoat because he was doing two mens work tonight due to Lewis Hunt's complete inability to comprehend the concept of being a right winger.

I don't think I've ever seen a more narrow Southend side than tonight's one. And poor Freddy Eastwood. Scores two goals and still ends up on the losing team.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Beefy @ Oct. 13 2006,23:48)]Pity, as things started so brightly. A much improved performance from us tonight but we've still come away from the match with nothing because of our complete inability to defend.

No JCR, Paynter or Clarke to blame tonight. I hope Francis isn't this week's scapegoat because he was doing two mens work tonight due to Lewis Hunt's complete inability to comprehend the concept of being a right winger.

I don't think I've ever seen a more narrow Southend side than tonight's one. And poor Freddy Eastwood. Scores two goals and still ends up on the losing team.
Bang on with that.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Beefy @ Oct. 13 2006,23:48)]Pity, as things started so brightly. A much improved performance from us tonight but we've still come away from the match with nothing because of our complete inability to defend.

No JCR, Paynter or Clarke to blame tonight. I hope Francis isn't this week's scapegoat because he was doing two mens work tonight due to Lewis Hunt's complete inability to comprehend the concept of being a right winger.

I don't think I've ever seen a more narrow Southend side than tonight's one. And poor Freddy Eastwood. Scores two goals and still ends up on the losing team.
Spot on Beefy,

Tonight decision to play Hunty as a right winger took mr back to the dark days of Steve Wignall. He offered nothing at all from start to finish.

Agree with James comments but cant see how so many people got good marks when we lost.

Maher and Fred were fantastic, Harrold, Hammell and Prior impressed me....Though most others were avergage and Hunty was very poor altough I cant fault his effort and he was out of position.....




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I thought we were shocking tonight, and Coventry were even worse.

We have conceded 20 goals in 11 games. Thats almost 100 in a season.

I know tonight we didn't get the rub of the green with their equaliser and us hitting the woodwork, but I can only remember us having 2 shots in the first half, and one of those was a penalty.

I think we are all getting carried away as it was an improved performance from Cardiff and Derby, but Coventry were not a good team at all on tonights performance, yet we still lost.

Its now 7 without a win, we will more than likely be bottom tomorrow, with more tough games coming up, I can't see where the next points are coming from.

At the moment, I can see us being down by chistmas.
 
My negatives: Francis - looks out of form and poor defensively, some dodgy distribution. Hunt - He is clearly NOT a right-sided midfielder. If he is to play it should be in centre-midfield as the anchor. Gutts - sorry but still off form for me and he is not the player he was last season. I feel we are sorely lacking a driving forward midfielder in the mould of a Scholes, Gerrard, Nolan etc. Apart from Freddy no-one else looks like scoring and that is a cause of concern.

My Positives: Prior was a class above Clarke and Barrett looks more comfortable with 'Mr Reliable' playing alongside him. Spinner hasn't got the Pace anymore but his experience of all those years at the top level showed tonight. Maher - excellent game tonight and a great pass for our 2nd goal. I feel he has been our most consistent (best?) player so far this season. Freddy - the guy is class and we will miss him when he is gone. It been a great 2 years but I feel that we may be looking at the last few months for Freddy in a Southend Shirt. Flavs + Gower also had good games - 2 more who are finding the step-up to the Championship less of a problem than others.

The performance was miles improved from the inept display at Derby and on other days with a bit of luck and some better officials we might of had all 3 points. Coventry were not that much better than us but again taught us a lesson that you dont give the ball away at this level. I am disappointed but not as downbeat as after the Derby and Cardiff games.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Beefy @ Oct. 13 2006,23:48)]Pity, as things started so brightly. A much improved performance from us tonight but we've still come away from the match with nothing because of our complete inability to defend.

No JCR, Paynter or Clarke to blame tonight. I hope Francis isn't this week's scapegoat because he was doing two mens work tonight due to Lewis Hunt's complete inability to comprehend the concept of being a right winger.

I don't think I've ever seen a more narrow Southend side than tonight's one. And poor Freddy Eastwood. Scores two goals and still ends up on the losing team.
Interesting that you point out you do not wish Francis to be this weeks scapegoat, yet so far, everybody seems to be pointing the finger at Hunt!!

Hunt is not a right winger, never has been, never will be, so why he is being played there as opposed to JCR, I have no idea. He does not deserve any criticism in my book, because in the games he has played so far this season, he has given his all to the cause, just not his fault he is being played in his two weakest positions.

Francis should not be made the scapegoat, you are right. It goes way deeper than that.

Since pre season, I have been saying on here how worried I am by his performances, I am still yet to see him play well, and again tonight, he was dreadful.

I dont care about peoples opinion of me anymore, I just have to say it... He is shocking!!!

His first touch is really poor, he has no strength, no positional sense and is by far and away the weakest link in our backline, and I include Clarke's performance against Derby when I say this.

Lewis Hunt, for whom I have never been his biggest fan, has to come in at right back against Burnley. He may not be as attack minded as Francis, but our current problems lie in us keeping clean sheets, and Hunt is a 2-300% better right back than Francis.

I dont like singling out players for criticism, I think often it is done with far too much haste, but Francis has been a major cause for our deficiences in defence this season, and IMHO he has to be replaced, and PDQ!!

Aside from that rant, I thought our overall performance was pretty good tonight, take out the defensive mistakes and we win the game. We deserved at least a point, probably all three, but as someone else said, it is worrying that we still shipped 3 goals to a distinctly average side, and at home.

I genuinely am not sure where else we go at the moment, as I say, the performance was acceptable tonight, and yet we still lose.

Not sure my ticket for Tuesday night was such a good idea now!!!
 
quick ratings:

flavs 6
hammell 5
francis 6
prior 8
barrett 7
maher 7
gutts 7
hunt 7
gower 7
harrold 8
freddy 8
 
I find with Francis that several times in a game, he will produce some defending of the highest class. Unfortunately, he can't sustain this or even acceptable defending at times and he counters his excellent defending with poor defending.

If he could just find a semblance of consistency, even for ninety minutes, he would be fantastic. So far, I've just not seen much to suggest he can do this. I don't think it would be too dramatic to bring Hunt in at right back with JCR in front.

I agree that Hunt has not really done anything wrong other than appear to be versatile enough to play rihgt mid, presumably based on the fact that he has played both in midfield and on the right hand side.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Richard_Cadette @ Oct. 14 2006,00:25)]Hunt is not a right winger, never has been, never will be, so why he is being played there as opposed to JCR, I have no idea. He does not deserve any criticism in my book, because in the games he has played so far this season, he has given his all to the cause, just not his fault he is being played in his two weakest positions.
I'm not criticising Hunt as such, I'm criticising the tactics. Hunt barely got within ten yards of the right touchline in the first half which made us predictable and narrow going forward and left Francis hopelessly exposed every time Coventry had the ball. I'd hoped that that would have been addressed by the management at half time, yet Hunt still played in the middle in the second half too. I doubt whether Coventry's left back has had an easier game in his entire career.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]
Southend manager Steve Tilson
"When you are down at the bottom you do not get the luck and that has happened again.
"I'm disappointed not to have got anything, I think we deserved a point.

"We gave away two goals at bad times, either side of the break, but for me the team showed great spirit to get us back into the game."


Coventry boss Micky Adams
"We were fortunate to get the points because we were under severe pressure.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Richard_Cadette @ Oct. 14 2006,00:25)]Not sure my ticket for Tuesday night was such a good idea now!!!
At least you'll be guaranteed a ticket to Layer Road.

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[b said:
Quote[/b] (sufcintheprem @ Oct. 14 2006,00:37)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Richard_Cadette @ Oct. 14 2006,00:25)]Not sure my ticket for Tuesday night was such a good idea now!!!
At least you'll be guaranteed a ticket to Layer Road.

ghostface.gif
If we carry on defending like that, I am not sure that would be so good either.... Coventry I can handle, conceding 3 against the inbreds from up North of the county, nope, couldnt stomach that!!
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