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Post-Match Thread and Ratings Southend United 1, Cheltenham Town 2

We need Phillips back for Saturday because there is no way prosser or Spillane are going to be able to deal with akinfenwa! If no Phillips then I genuinely fear another loss :(

Or get a loanee in for 28 days. Half the problem is we have to rush players back before they are ready.
 
Or get a loanee in for 28 days. Half the problem is we have to rush players back before they are ready.

We have four already so can only play one more in a match day squad, I believe. I'd rather we signed a central midfielder.
 
Have to agree with the comment that asks why no Harris or Eastwood?
I want Big Bad Barry to succeed, but if the commentary was anything to go by, most times we were in a promising position, and he was on the end of it - he blunderered a foul to them.
I can see you would want a bit of aerial power to either get rid up front or cause a threat from crosses - but not when you give away a foul every time.
 
All round shockingly bad night.
Smith 6 ....cant keep pulling off world class saves week in week out + exposed when he has boys not men in front of him
Clohessey 6.... we need Sean to get forward where he is awesome, but hes forced to defend due to clowns around him.
Spillane ... 3 really bad signing. I never rated him at Daggers but he looks a little boy lost here. Runs like an injured Corr
Prosser 6 tried hard but was getting no help from his colleagues + no protection from midfield
Straker 4 shame as if played as a wing back would be ok , no confidence + poor at actually defending
Laird 5 didnt look fit from the start, struggled + was out of sorts but we will miss him for next few weeks
Woodyard 6 if he had some stronger players alongside him he would be ok but inexperience shows, 100% effort though.
Mayor 5 reminds me of Andy Rogers from years back , 8/10 first half 2/10 for 2nd half.
Hurst 3 anonymous, not sure what job he was told to do
Corr 3 didnt win any headers, runs like hes got wooden legs, would be a decent sub
Reeves 5 nice goal, but clearly cant defend. Not sure what position i'd play him. another strange signing really.
Assombalonga 6 looked lively , needs that goal for confidence. really poor service to him so living off scraps down channel
Leonard 5 hope he is fit to play ,but not convinced comfortable centre mid .
Lavery 5 hope his enthusiasm doesnt get drained away soon

Strange centre midfield + centre defence were our blatant weeknesses but Spicer nor Coughlin brought on.

Attwell 0/10 ... cant believe him + his linos could be so poor + so blinkered. If he has not taken a bung for that performance i would be amazed. Really terrible with no concept of the game of football.
 
All round shockingly bad night.
Smith 6 ....cant keep pulling off world class saves week in week out + exposed when he has boys not men in front of him
Clohessey 6.... we need Sean to get forward where he is awesome, but hes forced to defend due to clowns around him.
Spillane ... 3 really bad signing. I never rated him at Daggers but he looks a little boy lost here. Runs like an injured Corr
Prosser 6 tried hard but was getting no help from his colleagues + no protection from midfield
Straker 4 shame as if played as a wing back would be ok , no confidence + poor at actually defending
Laird 5 didnt look fit from the start, struggled + was out of sorts but we will miss him for next few weeks
Woodyard 6 if he had some stronger players alongside him he would be ok but inexperience shows, 100% effort though.
Mayor 5 reminds me of Andy Rogers from years back , 8/10 first half 2/10 for 2nd half.
Hurst 3 anonymous, not sure what job he was told to do
Corr 3 didnt win any headers, runs like hes got wooden legs, would be a decent sub
Reeves 5 nice goal, but clearly cant defend. Not sure what position i'd play him. another strange signing really.
Assombalonga 6 looked lively , needs that goal for confidence. really poor service to him so living off scraps down channel
Leonard 5 hope he is fit to play ,but not convinced comfortable centre mid .
Lavery 5 hope his enthusiasm doesnt get drained away soon

Strange centre midfield + centre defence were our blatant weeknesses but Spicer nor Coughlin brought on.

Attwell 0/10 ... cant believe him + his linos could be so poor + so blinkered. If he has not taken a bung for that performance i would be amazed. Really terrible with no concept of the game of football.

:hilarious: and that's who he reminded me of when running
 
It wasn't a penalty and if it was then why weren't we given one for the foul on Leonard in the second half, in fact there were two in the space of a few seconds? Disallowed wasn't offside either I think. We deserved a draw at least.

It was a clear and blatant penalty, Woodyard is an idiot for making that challenge when there was very little danger (although Attwell was garbage too, we should have had two stonewall pens second half). I agree Cheltenham looked a very poor side for top 3, much less impressive than they were last season. Having said that we were horrendous defensively last night and thats why we lost the game, no other reason.

We can take some comfort in the fact that we are missing VITAL players in Phillips, Cresswell, Timlin, Laird, Tomlin etc - with those players fit we'd have turned a side like Cheltenham over comfortably last night. Trouble is our season could be over by the time most of those return, these are not fringe players they are essential to our success this season. I honestly can't remember the last time we were down to such bare bones.....

:thumbdown:
 
Need to dig in and get through the next few weeks. We have a number of squad players in the team at the moment who wouldn't be under usual circumstances - it's certainly true they aren't as good as the players they have replaced, but that's why they are squad players. Equally we had a midfielder playing at centre half, and another centre-half (Prosser) who is twice the player when he has Cresswell alongside him. There's nothing we can do about these injuries - we just have to play this one out. It's times like this when fans need to be the 12th man.
 
mii4x.png


snake cheltenham.jpg
 
Not sure how much truth is in this one, but apparently Tomlin could be out for the rest of the season with a ruptured Thigh Muscle which may need surgery,if this is true then why don't the club come out and tell the supporters.
 
Not sure how much truth is in this one, but apparently Tomlin could be out for the rest of the season with a ruptured Thigh Muscle which may need surgery,if this is true then why don't the club come out and tell the supporters.

Probably for the same reason Ferguson had a right pop at Stuart Pearce for revealing that Phil Jones had contracted shingles the other week. The longer the extent of Tomlin's injury is kept ambiguous, the longer we can keep opponents guessing as to what squad we're likely to send out. If we disclose that Tomlin's out for the rest of the season, then it's common knowledge that Corr's the most likely candidate to replace him so opposing managers have all week to prepare their teams for the aerial battle. It's a slim advantage, but one we probably can't afford to be without at the moment.
 
Probably for the same reason Ferguson had a right pop at Stuart Pearce for revealing that Phil Jones had contracted shingles the other week. The longer the extent of Tomlin's injury is kept ambiguous, the longer we can keep opponents guessing as to what squad we're likely to send out. If we disclose that Tomlin's out for the rest of the season, then it's common knowledge that Corr's the most likely candidate to replace him so opposing managers have all week to prepare their teams for the aerial battle. It's a slim advantage, but one we probably can't afford to be without at the moment.

An interesting point, minus one salient detail. Trust me, and I know, the football grapevine will be aware almost instantly if Tomlin is out for the season.
The gossip amongst players themselves is something to behold - remember that yawning half day when the rest of us are still at the coal face and they're twiddling their thumbs on texts, Twitter and Facebook?
 
I find it hard to beleive that the type of football played by Cheltenham gets them so high in the division!
You needed a aircraft licence to watch that! The ball was continually high In the air. I'm sure they played a lot differently last season.
On our day we would have torn them apart. We just got off to a bad start.
Not all doom and gloom for me..
 
I find it hard to beleive that the type of football played by Cheltenham gets them so high in the division!
You needed a aircraft licence to watch that! The ball was continually high In the air. I'm sure they played a lot differently last season.
On our day we would have torn them apart. We just got off to a bad start.
Not all doom and gloom for me..

Yep radio commentators kept saying that the team beating us were not that good , although not quite sure how that reflects on us !
 
I find it hard to beleive that the type of football played by Cheltenham gets them so high in the division!
You needed a aircraft licence to watch that! The ball was continually high In the air. I'm sure they played a lot differently last season.
On our day we would have torn them apart. We just got off to a bad start.
Not all doom and gloom for me..

We did alright last season playing like that!
 
Horrible tactics from Cheltenham, glad they're not my team! Every header for Corr in the 1st half, they went 2 up on him, sandwiching him and giving him an elbow or two in the process. Not once did he get anything from the officials during that half. The no 25 and the no 16 were both unmitigated bullies, wasn't it the no 16 who had the off the ball incident with Clohessy that the lino failed to see despite being not that far from it?

I didn't think Spillane did that badly, but we needed Coughlan's brute strength rather than a make shift CB. We'll need the same on Saturday, Akinfenwa will walk all over us otherwise. Also didn't think Straker was too bad. Problem was midfield, Reeves and Mayor were fine, both looked to have a touch of class and would scare the life out of a number of full backs in our division. Hurst, for me, has been off the boil for some time now, his dead ball delivery last night was poor. Corners improved massively once Reeves was taking them. Corr improved as the match went on and once Britt was on too. I was actually impressed by Britt, who looked to have regained his form.

Pen was nailed on, shame for Woodyard who has been pretty good lately. 2nd goal was down to the fact Smith doesn't come for the ball, and Spillane isn't used to playing with him. Reeves took his brilliantly.

Want to see Leonard playing more, we looked a lot brighter when he came on.

Officials were just plain awful. Think Trevor Kettle and Mr Singh at their worst.....and then some!
 
Horrible tactics from Cheltenham, glad they're not my team! Every header for Corr in the 1st half, they went 2 up on him, sandwiching him and giving him an elbow or two in the process. Not once did he get anything from the officials during that half. The no 25 and the no 16 were both unmitigated bullies, wasn't it the no 16 who had the off the ball incident with Clohessy that the lino failed to see despite being not that far from it?

I didn't think Spillane did that badly, but we needed Coughlan's brute strength rather than a make shift CB. We'll need the same on Saturday, Akinfenwa will walk all over us otherwise. Also didn't think Straker was too bad. Problem was midfield, Reeves and Mayor were fine, both looked to have a touch of class and would scare the life out of a number of full backs in our division. Hurst, for me, has been off the boil for some time now, his dead ball delivery last night was poor. Corners improved massively once Reeves was taking them. Corr improved as the match went on and once Britt was on too. I was actually impressed by Britt, who looked to have regained his form.

Pen was nailed on, shame for Woodyard who has been pretty good lately. 2nd goal was down to the fact Smith doesn't come for the ball, and Spillane isn't used to playing with him. Reeves took his brilliantly.

Want to see Leonard playing more, we looked a lot brighter when he came on.

Officials were just plain awful. Think Trevor Kettle and Mr Singh at their worst.....and then some!
I think we saw the same game! I thought from some of the posts that I was in a parallel universe.
 
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An interesting point, minus one salient detail. Trust me, and I know, the football grapevine will be aware almost instantly if Tomlin is out for the season.
The gossip amongst players themselves is something to behold - remember that yawning half day when the rest of us are still at the coal face and they're twiddling their thumbs on texts, Twitter and Facebook?

I'm sure that if the manager wanted to keep something quiet then he would tell the players to keep it to themselves.
 
Agree with OBL. Thought Straker did okay, and was no worse than anyone else. The problem was that when Straker went forward, instead of there being some defensive cover from midfield, which Timlin would normally do, Prosser was covering and wandering too far out of his own zone, which left Spillane and Chlohessey to try and bridge the holes at the back. The lack of understanding between Spillane and Smith led directly to their second, which to be fair, could happen with any new personnel in the back 4.

For me, the problem last night was two-fold. We looked bright and in command until Woody (recklessly) gave away the penalty, then our fragile confidence crumbled. Then, we were dragged into their high balls, which we have never been very good at (despite playing that way so much), and we allowed them to run the midfield. Corr was ineffective again, and although he put a few nice touches together, it wasnt a commanding performance. Shame about Laird, as he was just starting to look settled and solid. Think that given time Prosser will be a fantastic captain, he did well under the circumstances but lacks experience, which will come. Was also surprised that Sturrock didnt put Harris or Coughlan out for a while, as we were desperate to have some solid experience out there!

I thought Cheltenham were equally poor, and dont look like an automatic promotion side IMHO. Its not often you get treated to time-wasting on such a big scale with 1/2 hour still to play... On the up-side, whilst it was a very poor home performance, for what should have been a guaranteed 3 points, Mayor looks like the real deal, as does Reeves. Britt looks like he is on the road to recovery, and whilst it was disjointed and unbalanced, and one or two had 'off-days', it isnt all doom and gloom, as when we played the ball on the deck we looked pretty good. We just didnt do enough of this. In addition, the refereeing hit a new low, and I am still not quite sure why our first goal was disallowed and the 2 penalty shouts werent upheld...?? All in all, I am not so worried about Saturday, as we will be closer to getting Phillips and Barker back - even if they are both just on the bench.
 
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