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Post-Match Thread and Ratings Southend United 2-3 Aldershot Town

I just had a quick look at the Pre-match thread and the results of the poll; bar some indecision over the keeper (Arnold not being possibly fit or a new loan keeper coming in) where pretty much the team we would have selected. The only main differences was Atkinson (who wasn't on the poll) for Phillips and Egbri for White.

We played (if you could call it that) 4-4-2 which is what everyone had been calling out for. Perhaps (it might be sad to hear) that we just aren't as good as people think we are. National League may well be our level now and we might have to accept that for a while.

We need to find our feet in this league, adjust to the way teams play, the way they set up and the way the games are officiated.

I do find it strange that we can play well against the big boys (The Wrexhams and the Stockports) but we struggle against the "smaller" teams. But then this has always been our downfall.

Many a time I've looked at the form guide of the next opposition and it reads something like not won in their last 6 games and I always think to myself, that'll be 3 points for them when they play us then.
 
Ratings for what it's worth:

Arnold - 6 Looks a competent and confident keeper - definite upgrade on Oxley
Demi - 5 Tried hard, runs around a lot but looks lost
Ralph - 6 Good player who will be gone in the next window back to the Football League where he belongs
Hobson - 2 Cumbersome, slow, doesn't strike the ball cleanly - great assist under no pressure for their third goal
Coulson - 1 Worse than Hobson
Atkinson - 4 Started brightly then just disappeared
Bridge - 3 Didn't even start brightly before he too disappeared
Egbri - 3 All effort, no end product, no value
Dunne - 3 Was he playing?
Dalby - 6 I thought he had a great first half with no service - like Ralph will be gone in the next window
Murphy - 6 Makes a nuisance of himself again with no service, not sure he is Captain material but then again who in this lot is?

Brown the bus driver - 1 and that is for turning up. What's this about playing players in their correct positions that he said. Is he saying that he hasn't done that before? No Plan B (not even sure there was a Plan A), no motivation, no ideas any more. Has already alienated at least 4 members of the squad - surely his last job in football which suggests that he won't walk away.
 
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Yes they did, whilst Sim didnt necessarily score the goals we hoped for he was quick and direct on the ball and made chances. ANG excited me a lot at times last season. Whilst he struggles a touch with his final ball like Egbri he is a far superior footballer.

Akinola scored 16 goals in the conference before joining us. This is what i cannot stand about Brown, you need a few players in the side that have a bit of attitude and rough round the edges. You cannot and will not win games of football with 11 Phil Brown players on the pitch anymore.
Ok well you must’ve been watching two different players to me. Both to me offered very little in the final third. Last season we couldn’t create chances or score goals. ANG just ran into blind alleys. I keep hearing about Akinola being great at Barnet (he was amazing when I watched him for Braintree years ago) but he hasn’t quite sparked for Southend. To me we need creative players in the middle, not wingers who can’t deliver the ball into the box.
 
Do me a favour and read this out loud:
- We are playing in a division we have never experienced before
- We hired a manager who had also never managed at this level before

And we wonder why it's going so wrong. We needed someone with real NL experience, not some washed up manager who is so unemployable he had to go to India for work.

I really hope that some on here are beginning to realise that MM was not the problem last season. He had to sign scraps, some of which he couldn't even register and then deal with embargo's. PB had signed all bar Egbri in the starting 11 last night, (Sign or contract extended).

Another note on PB - Stop mentioning character!! You signed these players you surely must have done some homework on their character/mentality as well as technical ability.

As most have said, until Ron gets his Lego dream realised and we have a three sided stadium in the middle of a housing estate hosting Southend vs Fylde in front of 2500 fans he isn't going anywhere.

I can't go to a game for around a month now and to be honest I am pretty happy that's the case.
 
He didn't actually throw anybody under the bus (granted maybe Coulson was nudged towards the kerb a bit) but he cited the teams character, rather than a lack of legs/pace. A lot of people, Brown included, thought that a collection of wily gnarled veterans would get us out of this league, when in fact younger athletic teams seem to have the upper hand.

The trouble is that last year we started the season with a young, athletic side that got gubbed 4-0 on the opening day by the team that had just come up from this league and who had never played in the football league before.

We need a blend of youth and experience, not a plethora of either all at once.

I'm not mourning the loss of ANY of the departees from last year; further, we have made 3 very good additions to the squad - Arnold, Dalby and Murphy (although with no transfer window who rates the chances of them still being here at Christmas?).

Ralph is clearly too good for this level but let's also not forget that every team he has played for has been relegated and he has only appeared in one competitive victory for us.

No-one can doubt the character of John White but this is - in all honesty - a season too far for him.

Will Atkinson was a decent player for us 4 years ago. Last night he looked way out of his depth as Aldershot simply passed the ball around our veteran midfield.

Demitriou has the character PB wants but is again a crock with half his knee missing.

We haven't really seen Ogogo yet but what I HAVE seen doesn't make me think he is the missing link and the solution to the problems.

Coulson I was really excited about but 4-4-2 is not his system. He cannot be exposed to pace and when I say pace, I mean any other professional footballer. I'm 60, overweight and with a dodgy knee but I could probably give him a run for his money (OK, I couldn't, but you get the point).

Phillips and Ferguson seem to be no longer part of the plan and I don't necessarily disagree. However, I can't see how either could have made last nights debacle any worse. Similarly, Akinola and ANG couldn't make this team worse either, but Brown will absolutely not play them. It's an interesting line in the sand.

So where do we go from here? **** knows. Down, probably.
 
Do me a favour and read this out loud:
- We are playing in a division we have never experienced before
- We hired a manager who had also never managed at this level before

And we wonder why it's going so wrong. We needed someone with real NL experience, not some washed up manager who is so unemployable he had to go to India for work.

I really hope that some on here are beginning to realise that MM was not the problem last season. He had to sign scraps, some of which he couldn't even register and then deal with embargo's. PB had signed all bar Egbri in the starting 11 last night, (Sign or contract extended).

Another note on PB - Stop mentioning character!! You signed these players you surely must have done some homework on their character/mentality as well as technical ability.

As most have said, until Ron gets his Lego dream realised and we have a three sided stadium in the middle of a housing estate hosting Southend vs Fylde in front of 2500 fans he isn't going anywhere.

I can't go to a game for around a month now and to be honest I am pretty happy that's the case.
I don't get that at all. Say we get a manager with National League experience but no League experience. IF we get promoted do we part services with him and get someone with league 2 experience because he has never managed at this level before.
 
I read lots of positives on Ralph on here (well positive in the sense he isn’t as bad as others) but 2 of Wrexhams goals and 1 last night came from crosses down his wing. Hardly the secure presence needed on the left hand side.
 
I don't get that at all. Say we get a manager with National League experience but no League experience. IF we get promoted do we part services with him and get someone with league 2 experience because he has never managed at this level before.
We aren't talking about a standard relegation here, we are looking at back to back relegation's with the season before feeling like a relegation season until the final day.

In my opinion we needed someone with NL experience who understands what it takes to get out of the NL. Getting out of L2-L1 and getting out of NL-L2 are two very different things.

I don't buy that. He's got vast experienced as a manager. He should be able to manage and motivate a side with his pedigree
Should be able to motivate but instead batters them in the media claiming he doesn't want some of them at the club despite being in the match day squad.

That'll boost morale and confidence.
 
I have to take my hat off to those who have travelled all over the Country for away matches these last few years. Personally I'd rather pull my teeth out with a pair of rusty pliers.
And I can’t believe we still get over 5,000 crowds at home games with the utter rubbish on show, improve or they will go down for sure.
 
I missed the first 20 minutes of last night’s game because of a meeting. It seemed I missed the one period of the game when we looked half decent even though it took a bizarre goal to put us into the lead. From the moment I took my seat in South Upper there was only really one team that looked like scoring and it wasn’t us. Aldershot looked match fit (we looked very leggy), physically strong (we were ‘bullied’ all over the pitch by players in yellow who were fit, agile, working to a system) and who looked to play football whereas we simply hoofed the ball upfield in the hope that our two very decent forwards might be able to feed off the scraps. We looked bereft of ideas and offered little movement either on or off the ball. We are not going to win football games like this- it was utterly inept.

It is not just a case that we do not do the basics it is as if our players don’t know what the basics are. If each player knew the system they were being asked to play and kept both shape and organisation then surely the basics would include understanding at least some of the things that could be done differently to try to wrest back control of the game when things were going wrong. My concern is that our on-pitch problems are less about character, which I think is is a smokescreen, and more about the quality of players we have brought in, their physical capacity (it is clear that some just don’t have the legs to run the game anymore), their age (sell by dates are long gone in too many cases) and have not been coached to function as a team on the pitch. Age, ability and physical capacity notwithstanding it seems to me that much must lie at the door of the way we are coached or what we are coached to try and do.

Ron Martin may well have much to answer for as to why we are where we are now but the performances on the pitch this season are the result of recruitment, coaching and the individual/team responsibility of the players themselves. Last night was a new low for the team we all support and it was desperately sad sitting watching the game unfold and being absolutely sure how it was going to end.

On a brighter note, Shrimperzone offers a community of support for long-suffering supporters, the online equivalent of going to the pub after the match and talking through the highs, lows and ‘what ifs’ of the game. Thank you to all who post and long may our exchange of views and banter continue. Up the Blues!
 
"On a brighter note, Shrimperzone offers a community of support for long-suffering supporters, the online equivalent of going to the pub after the match and talking through the highs, lows and ‘what ifs’ of the game. Thank you to all who post and long may our exchange of views and banter continue. Up the Blues!"

What are these "highs" of which you speak?
 
a lot of good sense posted on here ....

I do think PB has got it wrong . I think he thought I need some tough old dogs to bust my way out this nasty hell hole ... but his tough old dogs are getting done by hungry pups fighting for their opportunity to rise up.

I think you need a way of playing that allows higher skill levels to out perform the rough and tumble - and PBs whole focus has been on the rough and tumble..

Obviously playing SUFC and their "famous" manager is the big one for these teams - and the officials are generally terrible - so it is not easy BUT we can play.

I think PB has created a fragile mind set with his hysterics - turning on the players.

I hope he can throw his hands up and plead guilty - take some responsibility - have a total re-think and get a result Saturday.

Otherwise ... ?
 
I hope you don't mind an outsider chipping in. Obviously I can't comment on the game, but enough of you have done so to give a picture.

I've been reading this board since we (Blackpool) beat you at RH two years ago. My perspective on all this is that the responsibility for where you are has to lie at the top. I've watched a couple of your Supporters meetings on Zoom and listened closely to what Mr. Martin has had to say. My impressions :

a) I can't comment on the owner's overall strategy re the stadium and redevelopment, as I don't know enough about it. But it's hard to discern a strategy re the football

b) the alarm bells really started ringing for me after a Zoom meeting where the owner was asked what contingency plans he had prepared for budgets and recruitment should the club be relegated out of the EFL. It was clear that there were none, despite the club being in a very precarious position. At other clubs - mine for example - contingency planning when future status is uncertain is a staple part of what the club does

c) the other thing I found hard to fathom was giving MM a vote of confidence in a supporters meeting and then sacking him days later. It suggested either dishonesty or panic on the part of the owner then, and still does now

d) that was compounded by the appointment of Phil Brown. I know there is a sentimental attachment for all of you, but it felt surreal reading some of the positivity about him at the time. Elsewhere in football fan circles he is viewed as a man who has very limited tactical acumen and one who seems to have been left behind by modern coaching methods and is further hampered by what look likes a very limited list of contacts, if his recruitment is anything to go by

e) there doesn't seem to be a long term plan around sustainability. My team got tubbed 0-3 at home last night, and there is some grumpiness around this morning. But ours is a young team (and getting younger), scrupulously scouted and bought with a view to re-sale potential and further re-investment. We are not making linear progress, but we are going forward and people understand how we are trying to do it. Do you feel you can say the same?

f) last point re Brown. I have been a team manager all my professional life, and one thing I do know about building effective teams is that you don't single out individuals for public blame or question the overall integrity of the group if you want to inspire them or build trust. If there was one immediate change I would make it would be to ban the manager from making media comments, especially after poor results. All he does is pour petrol on a fire that looks to me as though it is already out of control

I must say I do fear for you a bit. The League you are in is a difficult place to compete, and probably the hardest one in the pyramid to get out of in the right direction. The only saving grace I can see is Dover and Barnet are probably going to take up two relegation spots (and I'm not sure about Barnet).
 
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On a brighter note, Shrimperzone offers a community of support for long-suffering supporters, the online equivalent of going to the pub after the match and talking through the highs, lows and ‘what ifs’ of the game. Thank you to all who post and long may our exchange of views and banter continue. Up the Blues!
Agreed - although the thing about the pub was that the anger was vented and then everyone went home and calmed down. By the time the next game was played, feelings had cooled.

The online equivalent allows the pub to stay open 24/7 with everyone venting anger all the time and it actually gets worse.

But I'd still not be without the Zone...
 
I read lots of positives on Ralph on here (well positive in the sense he isn’t as bad as others) but 2 of Wrexhams goals and 1 last night came from crosses down his wing. Hardly the secure presence needed on the left hand side.
To be fair to Ralph whilst both Wrexham goals did come down the left 1 of them happened when he wasn't even on the pitch (he got subbed in the 56 minute and they scored 10 minutes later)
 
I read lots of positives on Ralph on here (well positive in the sense he isn’t as bad as others) but 2 of Wrexhams goals and 1 last night came from crosses down his wing. Hardly the secure presence needed on the left hand side.
What?! He was concussed for one and wasnt even on the pitch for the other!!!
 
I hope you don't mind an outsider chipping in. Obviously I can't comment on the game, but enough of you have done so to give a picture.

I've been reading this board since we (Blackpool) beat you at RH two years ago. My perspective on all this is that the responsibility for where you are has to lie at the top. I've watched a couple of your Supporters meetings on Zoom and listened closely to what Mr. Martin has had to say. My impressions :

a) I can't comment on the owner's overall strategy re the stadium and redevelopment, as I don't know enough about it. But it's hard to discern a strategy re the football

b) the alarm bells really started ringing for me after a Zoom meeting where the owner was asked what contingency plans he had prepared for budgets and recruitment should the club be relegated out of the EFL. It was clear that there were none, despite the club being in a very precarious position. At other clubs - mine for example - contingency planning when future status is uncertain is a staple part of what the club does

c) the other thing I found hard to fathom was giving MM a vote of confidence in a supporters meeting and then sacking him days later. It suggested either dishonesty or panic on the part of the owner then, and still does now

d) that was compounded by the appointment of Phil Brown. I know there is a sentimental attachment for all of you, but it felt surreal reading some of the positivity about him at the time. Elsewhere in football fan circles he is viewed as a man who has very limited tactical acumen and one whom seems to have been left behind by modern coaching methods and is further hampered by what look likes a very limited list of contacts, if his recruitment is anything to go by

e) there doesn't seem to be a long term plan around sustainability. My team got tubbed 0-3 at home last night, and there is some grumpiness around this morning. But ours is a young team (and getting younger), scrupulously scouted and bought with a view to re-sale potential and further re-invesment. We are not making linear progress, but we are going forward and people understand how we are trying to do it. Do you feel you can say the same?

f) last point re Brown. I have been a team manager all my professional life, and one thing I do know about building effective teams is that you don't single out individuals for public blame or question the overall integrity of the group if you want to inspire them or build trust. If there was one immediate change I would make it would be to ban the manager from making media comments, especially after poor results. All he does is pour petrol on a fire that looks to me as though it is already out of control

I must say I do fear for you a bit. The League you are in is a difficult place to compete, and probably the hardest one in the pyramid to get out of in the right direction. The only saving grace I can see is Dover and Barnet are probably going to take up two relegation spots (and I'm not sure about Barnet).
Thanks for this. Sadly, you're so right.

Good luck to the Tangerines. (I'm a satsuma man myself and our team are clearly easy peelers......)
 
Three of last night's squad have been relegated twice in a row. In Ralph's case, make that four back to back demotions.
Five more (am including Ferguson here) were relegated last season; probably the least competitive in Southend's history, save from that brief candle of hope around Xmas.
Surely, it has to be in the back of minds?
The new players are mostly journeyman, Dalby apart, and far from hungry.
The spirit just isn't there is it?
We need a bit of youth, speed and talent. Sit down, Terrell.
 
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