It’s a New Year and 2024 will hopefully shape up to be a lot brighter for Southend United than 2023 - the year when the club came perilously close to extinction.
The first game of the New Year sees FC Halifax Town visit Roots Hall, a Phoenix club who rose from the ashes after the original Halifax Town AFC went into administration in the 2007-08 season.
This is a game between the clubs with the two tightest defences in the National League with Halifax conceding a meagre 24 goals in their first 26 games this season - given our lack of a cutting edge in the festive double-header against Barnet, Halifax might be confident that their GA column might remain the same after 27 games too.
The fact that a team with such a good defensive record has only snuck into the final play off place is down to their lack of goal scoring with only Kidderminster, Maidenhead and Woking scoring fewer than Halifax’s 30 goals so far this season. Which brings me onto the only player they have in their squad who used to play for us - forward Aaron Cosgrave didn’t score for us in the 10 games he spent on loan from AFC Wimbledon and has scored 2 goals this season in his 21 appearances for Halifax (11 of which were from the bench).
In their own festive double header against Altrincham, Chris Millington’s side managed a win away and got a 0-0 draw at home.
Our double defeat has seen us slip down the form table, although with both teams getting 2 wins from the last 6 games our records are not too dissimilar.
By the time we kick off on Saturday afternoon, I’m sure we all hope that Kev will have some other options to play up front as the large number of Shrimpers who watched both games against Barnet will probably agree that starting with Sandat and Vilhete up front for a 3rd game in a row is unlikely to reap dividends against the meanest defence in the league.
Elsewhere it will be interesting to see if the midfield is tweaked after James Morton has spent a week training with the squad. His cameo from the bench against Barnet would certainly suggest that he’ll be a welcome addition to the squad.
At the time of writing this (Wednesday morning), no further additions have been made but they will be added to the poll if/when they arrive - as will any players returning from injury - hopefully the names of messrs. Miley, Cardwell, Powell, Martin and Lomas will be back on the list of options before too long.
So who would you choose to start in the first game of 2024 against the Shaymen at Roots Hall, and what do you predict the result will be?
The first game of the New Year sees FC Halifax Town visit Roots Hall, a Phoenix club who rose from the ashes after the original Halifax Town AFC went into administration in the 2007-08 season.
This is a game between the clubs with the two tightest defences in the National League with Halifax conceding a meagre 24 goals in their first 26 games this season - given our lack of a cutting edge in the festive double-header against Barnet, Halifax might be confident that their GA column might remain the same after 27 games too.
The fact that a team with such a good defensive record has only snuck into the final play off place is down to their lack of goal scoring with only Kidderminster, Maidenhead and Woking scoring fewer than Halifax’s 30 goals so far this season. Which brings me onto the only player they have in their squad who used to play for us - forward Aaron Cosgrave didn’t score for us in the 10 games he spent on loan from AFC Wimbledon and has scored 2 goals this season in his 21 appearances for Halifax (11 of which were from the bench).
In their own festive double header against Altrincham, Chris Millington’s side managed a win away and got a 0-0 draw at home.
Our double defeat has seen us slip down the form table, although with both teams getting 2 wins from the last 6 games our records are not too dissimilar.
By the time we kick off on Saturday afternoon, I’m sure we all hope that Kev will have some other options to play up front as the large number of Shrimpers who watched both games against Barnet will probably agree that starting with Sandat and Vilhete up front for a 3rd game in a row is unlikely to reap dividends against the meanest defence in the league.
Elsewhere it will be interesting to see if the midfield is tweaked after James Morton has spent a week training with the squad. His cameo from the bench against Barnet would certainly suggest that he’ll be a welcome addition to the squad.
At the time of writing this (Wednesday morning), no further additions have been made but they will be added to the poll if/when they arrive - as will any players returning from injury - hopefully the names of messrs. Miley, Cardwell, Powell, Martin and Lomas will be back on the list of options before too long.
So who would you choose to start in the first game of 2024 against the Shaymen at Roots Hall, and what do you predict the result will be?
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