Post-Match Thread and Ratings Southend United 1-1 Plymouth Argyle

[Shrimper]

2016-17: P3 W1 D0 L2 GF4 GA5 GD-1 PTS3
2017-18: P3 W1 D1 L1 GF3 GA7 GD-4 PTS4

1 point better off than last year.

 

[Up the Shrimpers]

Just a couple of points that may or may not have been covered. Think the physical side of Thompson's game is being missed particularly by Anton. Fortune couldn't be taken off as his height was needed at Plymouth set pieces. A game we really should have won but in the end we could have lost it. Early days.

I see Thompson was dropped to the bench for Bury's game today.

 

[Maidstone Shrimper]

After last week's thrashing this was a horrible fixture against a team of giants. I thought our defence did as well as could be expected .... not trying to out-jump them but in John White's case positioning himself well to either get in front of them or just lean on them so they couldn't get the direction they wanted. Anton wasn't brilliant but again there was no point in him trying to outleap them so he stood back and tried to deal with the second ball. It was inevitable they would score from a set piece if they managed a good delivery but we were let down today by our finishing and passing in the final third. We had a number of opportunities to get a second or third goal but badly weighted passes and wrong decision making stopped that.

All in all I'm a lot happier tonight than I expected to be. I hope I'll be even happier after a trip to Priestfield or two.

 

[OldBlueLady]

As others have said, some harsh comments on Demetriou and in particular, Hendrie, who I thought actually did ok today. Pitch was awful, great huge lumps of turf coming up. Can someone tell me exactly when wrestling became allowed? Poor old Marco was pulled about all over the place throughout the first half yet somehow, the ref gave the only free kick given against him - and how did the officials miss that blatant hand ball late in the 2nd half?

Seems strange when the goal was an oggy, but, we didn't get a lot of luck today. For a small keeper McCormick did very well on more than one occasion. We've got to make those chances count.

Oxley - 8, decent and confident performance, including one fantastic save
Demetriou - 6, got forward well, I've said before though, it's not him I want up there on the edge of the box
White - 8, MOTM, he won far more headers defensively than Anton and coped better with the Plymouth forwards
Ferdinand - 6, something's not right, last season he was commanding
Hendrie - 7, some lovely over-lapping play with Kightly, also worked hard defensively
McGlashan - 7.5, they really struggled to cope with him, another good game
Leonard - 7, worked hard and moved the ball about, couple of decent runs through the middle
Timlin - 6.5, dead balls were a bit hit and miss, with a defence the size of Plymouth's we'd have done better not to keep putting balls into the box from our many corners but trying something different
Kightly - 7.5, another Plymouth struggled to cope with, unlucky not to score
Cox - 6, poor Cox, needs to break his duck soon!
Fortune - 7, worked so hard, showed good strength, not a lot you can do when you're being continuously wrestled and getting no help from the officials

Subs:
Robinson for Cox - 5, got a nice egg on his head according to Twitter, yet again, nothing given. Looks short of confidence
McLaughlin for McGlashan - 6, not on long but had a good chance

Officials - poor today.

 

[MisterStubbs]

Frustrating as hell that game. Has a team ever had as many corners and failed to create a chance out of any of them? We were punished for the chances we did create and miss in the first half.

The referee was bloody awful, MAF was fouled almost every time we played the ball to him and how he or his assistant failed to see the blatant handball second half is beyond me.

I'm not usually one to criticise players but Theo Robinson, deary me. I've never seen a player who offers less than what he does when he gets brought on. The ball doesn't stick to him, he makes poor runs and for me the sooner Rangee gets fit the better.

 

[ms brush]

Am I alone in thinking that this was quite an entertaining game?

It was a bit frustrating to see us hold possession for long spells and fail miserably to convert countless times, and to see us concede an equaliser from a set piece, and without Oxley and White we could have easily lost. However, while we didn't dominate or kill the game off by half time as we could have done, it was a fair result and a good reflection of where we are right now. There are a ton of positive things that we can improve on, not least we have only played 3 league games so far, and we are in a better position than in the recent past. When you consider that quality players like Wordy, Keirnan, Ranger will be available soon and confidence players like Cox will hit form as some point soon, there are good things to come. We are still a work in progress, and I am glad I am there to see it!

My MOM was White, very closely followed by Oxley. Thought Hendrie started to show signs of the decent player I know is in there somewhere, Kightly is a class above, and McGlashan, while quick, kept giving the ball away!

A quick note on Anton - I thought he did pretty well today against the giraffes, and wisely chose not to try and compete in the air, but went after the second ball instead. He isn't playing at his best right now, but lots of people seem to have forgotten that he recently lost his mum. Grief hits hard, and isn't predictable. All I can surmise is he wants to play, so he is doing his job which is probably the best thing he can do, he is trying his very best, and that is all anyone can ask of him at such a difficult time in his life. Please don't give the man a hard time as well!!

 

[Lord Football]

There is some rubbish on this thread. Jeeeeezuz!!!!

We were the better team, should have had the game won by half time. Plymouth played better in the second half in spells, but I'd have been delighted to be leaving with a point if I were them.

But, a point they got in what was a pretty decent game. And fair play to them for not resting on their laurels and trying to get a win. Made for a good game..

So, much, much better than last week. But still work to be done.

I am concerned at the lack of depth in the squad. There really was no option to change things, change shape, try something different etc... maybe time for a dabble in the loan market for a player or two. Ranger and Woody can't come back in soon enough.

We wasted so much good play going forward with misplaced passes. Like last week Lenny and Tims seemed unable to find a blue shirt when passing.

Forwards desperately need a goal. Cox looks short of confidence, Fortune looks shot shy and Robinson......

Defensively better. Criticism of both Dimi and Hendrie is harsh to say the least. Hendrie was WAAAAY better than in previous weeks. We all know he can play, we've seen it. Ben Coker isn't coming back this side of Xmas, some of you really need to understand that.

John White appears to be a much better CB than RB at this level. Glad he got the MotM award. About time he got some recognition.

Oxley..... if that had been Bentley, we'd be raving. A really good, confident display with a couple of good stops.

 

[stickyboy]

Thought we were good 1st half and should have had game won. 2nd half was garbage, great save from Oxley though and worthy of a point at least

 

[BrettieAngell]

Interesting indeed! I was at the game and it feels like we watched two different matches. We needed a reaction from last week and got one, totally dominating Plymouth in the first half yet frustratingly only coming away one goal to the good. Plymouth changed the game second half and we were thankful in the end to Oxley who had an incredible game but, for me, it was poor decision making and failure to execute in front of goal that cost us the game today. Our application was spot on as was the reaction from he players who let us down last week.

yeah but we didn't win so we're crap innit.

 

[Shrimp and two veg]

We are at where we left off last season. Failing to finish off teams and get a win against inferior teams. The same players still underporforming, some of them could still put in a lot more and i'll name Lenny, Timlin, Demi, Hendrie and Ferdinand in that band. McGlashen was definetly a big threat for us, as was Kightly. We are nothing special right now BUT when you factor in good wingers then you will start pulling defences all over the place and we did that today. I'm not saying those names had a bad game, i'm saying they could have had a really good game, instead of being average. MAFand Cox were getting doubled up all game against giants and worked really hard, just failing to score. Looked to me like Theo was about to knock it in, when the ball got blatenly handballed, Plymouth should be playing with 10 after that, unfortunately the officials bottled it. Oxley made a worldy to keep the scoreline level, so pleased to see him actually save one for a change. One thing is for sure, if we hadnt have just come off a 0-5 spanking and suffered a confidence knock, i'm sure we wouldve have won that today. The result kind of mirrored where we are right now with Ranger, Wordy, Coker and another decent defender out of the playing squad. We need to find bite and skill in the centre of midfield quickly and we need to support by getting into the box, when our tearaway wingers are wipping in balls. Forget how big the other team are, we will get in behind teams time and again with Glash and Kights. Great reaction from last week, gutted not to sneak 3 points.

 

[BrettieAngell]

We are missing Wordsworth.

 

[OldBlueLady]

We are missing Wordsworth.

Hopefully not too much longer, should be playing an unders game soon, but has picked up another niggle which should run alongside the other stuff. Hoping to be back playing very soon.

 

[LBBlue]

We are missing Wordsworth.

And Ranger - Cox is certainly missing them......

 

[Blues 'n twos]

There is some rubbish on this thread. Jeeeeezuz!!!!

We were the better team, should have had the game won by half time. Plymouth played better in the second half in spells, but I'd have been delighted to be leaving with a point if I were them.

But, a point they got in what was a pretty decent game. And fair play to them for not resting on their laurels and trying to get a win. Made for a good game..

So, much, much better than last week. But still work to be done.

I am concerned at the lack of depth in the squad. There really was no option to change things, change shape, try something different etc... maybe time for a dabble in the loan market for a player or two. Ranger and Woody can't come back in soon enough.

We wasted so much good play going forward with misplaced passes. Like last week Lenny and Tims seemed unable to find a blue shirt when passing.

Forwards desperately need a goal. Cox looks short of confidence, Fortune looks shot shy and Robinson......

Defensively better. Criticism of both Dimi and Hendrie is harsh to say the least. Hendrie was WAAAAY better than in previous weeks. We all know he can play, we've seen it. Ben Coker isn't coming back this side of Xmas, some of you really need to understand that.

John White appears to be a much better CB than RB at this level. Glad he got the MotM award. About time he got some recognition.

Oxley..... if that had been Bentley, we'd be raving. A really good, confident display with a couple of good stops.

At last a realistic opinion!

We were the better side, just lacked a killer instinct in the final third.

Just an aside......Rotherham are below us in the league.....we have a long way to go yet.

 

[rigsby]

After Rotherham we all wanted a positive reaction and lets be fair that's what we got. The first half was totally one sided and if we had some end product we could have had a comfortable lead by half time.

First things first, if you shipped 5 goals last week you need to show you can defend and show you can compete. I think we did both and some of the low marks for our defence by some posters are totally unfair. The likes of Hendrie and Anton had good games today. The thing that impressed me most was we made if difficult for them. As others have said we were never going to out jump them in the air but right form the start we nudged and shoved and never let them settle or, unlike last week, take the ball down and play. Even our goal came from some excellent closing down by McG, so we made our own luck for that one.

The disappointing thing was our final ball and shooting. We had far more possession in their half but whilst their keeper barely made a save, despite our 16 corners and numerous shots, Ox had to make 3 good saves from about 4 shots.

Personally I thought Cox and McG had both drifted out of the game when they were subbed. Robinson was lively but let himself down with the final ball.

The most frustrating moment was on 90 mins when the ball fell to Kightly. Forget everything else that has happened, there's a moment in in a game when enough is enough and you just have to put your laces through it. When your 2-0 up, that's the time to flick on your other foot and make the defender look silly but not at 1-1 in a game you should have won.

 

[Medway Blue]

I thought Plymouth were very lucky to go in at half time only 1-0 down. We should have been out of sight. They're not up to much I don't think but credit to them, the 2 subs and the formation change that they made at half time made life more difficult for us second half and we weren't savvy enough to break them down. Definitely a step in the right direction though after last weekend's debacle. Anyway, some thoughts:

I think the main reason we lost points (and I'm sure it'll be a trend throughout the season) is the lack of football IQ throughout the attacking elements of our squad. When we broke forward today, the off-the-ball movement was good but time after time after time the attack would break down because of the propensity of certain players (namely (but by no means exclusively) Timlin and Leonard) to make a bad decision with a pass when there's a better option on, or to just be consistently unable to find a blue shirt with what should be a fairly simple through ball. I guess this is why these players are playing at this level but it's still hugely frustrating to watch sometimes. Decision-making and simple passing skills are leaving much to be desired.

We looked better defensively but also looked like there were a few disasters waiting to happen and no doubt they will against better quality opposition. I think there's something not quite right with Ferdinand, he doesn't seem to be the same player from last season. There were several times when he was caught out of position or badly flat-footed, a couple of passes played too short (one of which was to Oxley!) and a couple of occasions where he let a high ball forward from Plymouth bounce past him whereas last season he would have put his head on it. All very unlike him. He's never been amazingly mobile with us but I can't imagine he's got any less so over the summer so I think it's more of a mental thing with him but I hope he can get past it. Demetriou and Hendrie, despite cries of injustice from some on here at any criticism of them today, do worry me defensively. Neither of them seem to have much defensive awareness about them. They both looked fine going forward again today but defensively they looked weak again. Derek Adams certainly seemed to think Hendrie's a weak link because every time Plymouth won the ball off us in the middle of the pitch he was shouting and gesticulating at them to attack down their right. I was watching him do it continuously from my seat in the East Stand. I'm sure any scouts from upcoming opposition are noticing the same. Bit worrying for me.

Things aren't quite right up front. Fortuné runs himself into the ground but he's just not offering much. And I'm not sure what people are seeing on the training pitch. He might be 6'3 but HE DOES NOT JUMP. He doesn't win anything in the air. So why do we keep sending High balls up to him? Expecting him to play a role that he can't/won't? I don't get it. And Cox? Jeez he can't buy a goal. And he's digging himself a bigger hole - he clearly wants the ball at his feet and isn't getting it but he has no patience and is dropping ever deeper in search of it, to the point where he's not playing as a striker anymore and seems more like a slightly advanced midfielder. He's our main goal threat and whilst we might not get the ball to his feet as often as he or we would like, he's going to be even less of a goal scoring threat if he keeps dropping that deep. It's leaving Fortuné exposed further upfield by himself and there's no-one there to win a 2nd ball when Fortuné loses or fails to gain possession from balls forward - which is often. So the ball isn't sticking up there and is just coming straight back. They're not playing as a strike partnership at the moment, there were times when they linked up really well last season but they seem to have lost sight of the idea of working together and they are constantly yards and yards apart. Maybe Wordsworth's return will allow Cox to stay further forward where he should be?

Oxley, White, McGlashan and Kightly (bar the late miss) were impressive today. McGlashan and Kightly were doing excellent work first half and putting some great balls into the box but we don't seem to have anybody with a killer instinct in the box to get on the end of them. Or maybe we do in Cox, but he's wandering so deep all the time that he's not up with play when the ball comes into the box!

Plenty to work on I feel.

 

[rayleigh dan]

P

I could not give anyone a 9, John White looked better than most, but there was no stand out players for me, what a big team they are.

We had so many chances in the first half, I though we could have gone in maybe 2 or 3 nil up, we did not take them.

We won a fair few corners in the second, but again they are a very big team, why or why did we not mix it up and do short corners, there was not a chance of beating them in the air, but time and time we did the same.

Most of the squad are firing on 3 cylinders.

Good to have a chat with you tonight Iron, for those of you thinking he's a troll, I can assure you he's not.

Oxley 7 - Fantastic save second half.

Demetriou 6 - Good first half, a bit shaky 2nd.
Ferdinand 5 - Running through treacle, didn't have a good game today.
White 7 - MOM - Very good again, he looks a far better centre back than he does a right back.
Hendrie 6 - Huge improvement over Newport, he's got good quality going forward and looks like he can put decent cross in too.

Kightly 7 - Class above first half, 2nd he got in numerous good positions but seemed to waste the final ball.
Timlin 5 - Sorry, I love Tims but second half he looked a complete liability. All he did was recklessly dive in when we needed a cool head.
Leonard 6 - Did nothing wrong but still looked a little subdued.
Mcglashan 7 - Good positive runs, one forced the goal, looked our main threat 2nd half.

Cox 4 - WTF is wrong with Cox? Looks as bad as he was in the first few games last season.
Fortune 6 - First half fantastic - 8, second half lazy/tired? - 4.

Subs - Robinson 4 - ****ed up one decent counter attack we wen we had men over. His second touch is a tackle! Dreadful!
McLaughlin - At least took a shot which fizzed over.

Not sure how I've got that miserable looking emoji at the top of my post, please ignore it, I'm quite happy with our point today :happy:

 

[southend_aussies]

Two points lost for me today. Should have at least scored three or four in that first half. Those chances need to be taken.

Big month ahead for the team, need to start collecting points so we don't fall into the same trap as last season.

 

[Jay_SUFC]

There is some rubbish on this thread. Jeeeeezuz!!!!

We were the better team, should have had the game won by half time. Plymouth played better in the second half in spells, but I'd have been delighted to be leaving with a point if I were them.

But, a point they got in what was a pretty decent game. And fair play to them for not resting on their laurels and trying to get a win. Made for a good game..

So, much, much better than last week. But still work to be done.

I am concerned at the lack of depth in the squad. There really was no option to change things, change shape, try something different etc... maybe time for a dabble in the loan market for a player or two. Ranger and Woody can't come back in soon enough.

We wasted so much good play going forward with misplaced passes. Like last week Lenny and Tims seemed unable to find a blue shirt when passing.

Forwards desperately need a goal. Cox looks short of confidence, Fortune looks shot shy and Robinson......

Defensively better. Criticism of both Dimi and Hendrie is harsh to say the least. Hendrie was WAAAAY better than in previous weeks. We all know he can play, we've seen it. Ben Coker isn't coming back this side of Xmas, some of you really need to understand that.

John White appears to be a much better CB than RB at this level. Glad he got the MotM award. About time he got some recognition.

Oxley..... if that had been Bentley, we'd be raving. A really good, confident display with a couple of good stops.

Well said - Hendrie is being unfairly criticized, yet I thought he had a good game and got some excellent crosses over as well.

I think Cox is being unfairly criticised as well, he's putting himself about, but needs a goal.

To me, Leonard has been disappointing, if he wants that move to the Championship, he needs to up his game

 

[shrimperjon]

As like Blackburn at home, impressive first half, should or could have been two or three up
second half very disappointing, seem to take foot off the peddle and allowed Plymouth to play. For all our effort their keeper had little to do whereas Oxley made three very good saves. Two points lost on first half display, one gained on the second half