Post-Match Thread and Ratings Stevenage 0-0 Southend United

[LBBlue]

Complete and utter dross from both teams - they will go down with us.
Stevenage made our defence look good - 0 shots on target.
Apparently we managed two.

All these young players coached in academies from the age of what, 8? The best technical player on the field is 36 years old. So unlucky with those volleys.

Let them all train with tennis balls in the street for a couple weeks.
Apart from the elite , English footballers are pretty poor compared with even 15 years ago. The best players in this league are in the main 28 years old and older.

Egbri always looks lively and probably has had more shots than anyone this season but is knocked over so easily.

We aren’t going to score with Acquah and Goodship - no pace no positional awareness.

 

[Austin the Shrimper]

Macca is head and shoulders above any player we have and he is 35 and just about match fit.

Richard Taylor is not a football player.

Goodship has had his chance.. it’s not gonna happen for him unfortunately.

MM and team, full tactical genius on show for all to see today.

Embargo lifts this week, few new players.. can we turn the tide...

Strangely I think we can.

 

[blues exile]

Dreadful game, painful to watch and with few redeeming features, maybe McCormack excepted. Two awful sides who would struggle lower down the pyramid and a total waste of time and money. Football has been an abiding passion all my life, but games like this make you question your sanity.

 

[in the know]

Oxley - 7 - Kept a clean sheet, a lot better now he just boots it long.
Bwomomo - 7 - Played his part in the clean sheet.Didn’t offer an enormous amount further forward, but he didn’t really have a lot to work with.
Dieng - 7 - Solid. Not a fan of him playing deeper but was tidy enough.
Hobson - 7 - In fairness to the lad he’s improved as the seasons gone on. Still isn’t great but played a key role in clean sheet.
Kyps - 6 - Good defensively but lazy in terms of getting forward.
Taylor - 3 - Did nothing.Should’ve been sent off. Not only do I not rate him but he may be brain dead. Half of me never wants to see him play again the other half feels sorry for a young lad who’s in a tough situation.
McCormack - 8 - legs are clearly gone but experience and quality is telling. Loved the bollocking he gave Kyprianou. Our MOM. Should’ve got us a goal at the end and he’ll kick himself for that
JD - 7 - Our best player overall this season. Good enough for any team in this league. Works hard. Not sure his game is being the one to create something though, but certainly battles well in that midfield.
Olayinka - 6 - Quiet. Least I’ve noticed him.
Goodship - 4 - Offers nothing. Misses chances. Barely ever in the right place. And he’s a total wuss to go with it. Hate to criticise players, I’m sure he’s a nice bloke. But he’s not one you’d take into the trenches. Fed up of talking about him.
Acquah - 5 - Does his best but isn’t good enough yet. He has a chance for a future in the game though.

Subs
Egbri - 7 - The lad makes me smile. Not the best player but he’s great at pressing. Could’ve/should’ve scored. Would start him over the other forwards! Would actually like to see him as a 10 or centre forward as his pace causes teams problems.

MM - mixed feelings about today. Looking at the starting line up I thought we’d lose. On reflection we were the better team and to do that with this team deserves credit. Not too sure about his selection and time but atleast he’s learning the teams limitations.

That’s the worst team we will play this year and we drew. What does that tell us?
Don’t want to talk about Ron but the fella must have incredibly thick skin to be able to sit in his position and work the way he does.

We are run like a non league club, hence why we’ll soon be a non league club. Completely tin pot!

very accurate summary I thought. I agree with everything though I felt macca was a little wasteful first half. Really good 2nd half though

 

[Paddington Blue]

Macca - Different class
Dieng, Hobson, Ox - all good today
Oly, Elvis , Demi - okay but not at their best
Kyp, Acq, Egbri, Goodship, Taylor - Very poor - Not good enough for this league and we are certain to be relegated if they keep being selected.

Would like to have seen Rush and the Cokers given some match time -I don’t need to see any more of some of this squad to understand their level of ability.Why on earth did it take MM 75 minutes to substitute RT? We were so lucky the ref did not send him off.

Stevenage were equally poor and they must be destined for relegation. Much as I admire and respect Ben Coker he does not look to be the same player he was before the injury at Sunderland and he was not the threat I feared.

We can talk about clean sheets but this was a missed opportunity- a draw was not enough given and we will not find a more obliging opposition than Stevenage.

Well done Macca - still fight in the old dog and he was a great example to the younger players. Just hope he has not picked up an injury as he is our best hope to pick up a few more points.

Ron - Don’t draw any comfort from this result. Get embargo lifted immediately - I would like us to at least have something to play for in April.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Two rubbish teams, we just edged it I think and a win would’ve been huge. It’s not a defeat.....that’s a positive I guess. It’s going to be a long hard winter and again, we can’t win if we don’t score. We should’ve won 2-0 or 3-0 today.

If (and we will come up against better sides than Stevenage) we keep keeping clean sheets the confidence will grow and as we saw at Walsall if you can keep a clean sheet it gives you a great chance to win.

We defended well today with both centre-backs impressive and we actually move the ball about fairly well.

With Olayinka and, when available again, Nathaniel-George we have attacking players who can go past a man. Molesley has given up on 4-4-2 which was too open and the 4-2-3-1 works much better.

We're still playing with 10 men so the sooner Akinola can replace Goodship the better, but we're a world away where we were against Harrogate and Carlisle where we had a team of half fit kids. What we are still missing though is confidence otherwise that was the performance of a vaguely competent League Two side, which is something we haven't been able to say nearly enough this year.

That confidence isn't going to be easy to regain: the bad results go back three years. We need to go on a little unbeaten run - even if we're not winning matches it's important to get out of the habit of losing every week and string together some points. So this was an important step in the right direction. I'm confident we'd have lost this match earlier this season.

 

[wiggy]

Ox 6.....nothing to do
Elvis 4..... used to go forward, now in reverse
Kyps 5..... will always be non League
Hobson 6 steady enough
Demi 2. .....never a midfielder and constantly goes backwards
Dieng 6 one of the better ones
Oly 5 quiet game
Taylor 1. how did he ever get a pro contract?....M.M , big mistake starting him
Macca 9. shows how bad we are when his commitment and ability is on a different wavelength to the rest of the wasters
Bad ship ? 2......soon be back at home in non League, hopefully not with us
Egbri 7 revelation when he came on to replace that waster
Acqua 3 another waste of time and space

 

[mfurok]

Sounded as though we edged it, and had more opportunities to finish them off. One point really isnt enough, but a point and a clean sheet can only be a positive! Its the final third, the business end, where we need dramatic improvements. If we can suddenly find some shooting boots somewhere, there is a potential for us to start stringing a few results together!

Spot on........if we play Stevenage every week......

 

[RHB]

There were a lot of things in the game that where well off the mark for us, most notably our inability to score when in good positions. That said there were also a lot of good things done from my view of the game. Aquah actually ran, jumped and challenged for just about every ball, our back four had their best game of the season (even after the enforced substitution of Tom Clifford), and Macca was supreme in midfield (and he lasted 94 minutes). I can't argue with the fact that we are a very poor team, nor that the embargo needs lifting urgently, but based on that performance Molesley actually got a tune out of the players he does have at his disposal. Three points would have been great, and if Macca or Aqual or Terrell had been that bit more clinical then it would have happened, but again we got into the positions in the box this week which we haven't been doing previously. So for for me, a point was well earned.

 

[bazzashrimper]

It was important to get the draw. If the embargo lifts soon, please Ron, then 8 points is easier to get than 11. That said, Stevenage were appalling and we really should have scored one of 3 or 4 chances at the death.

We look better in the midfield at the moment. Much more competitive. Macca, in particular and Demi were good today. The back line weren’t really tested, but looked comfortable. It’s just up front, wow. ANG hopefully be back soon and with Kyle Taylor close to a return hopefully we will have some depth and MM some options soon.

Not up front though. To play Taylor as wide right shows a manager trying anything to get some spark into his team. Taylor was in fact complete garbage, but it’s not right to judge a young centre back on a match where he plays up front. For that, the judgement is on Mr Martin.

 

[davewebbsbrain]

Throw in Akinola, Hart and a.n other striker and I can see us winning games and rising up the table

Macca was immense today, the fitter he gets the more he will command the midfield.

I really think we have a chance of turning it round. The teams still within reach haven't had any of the issues we have had so are there for the taking in my opinion as soon as we get the embargo lifted

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

Well, what do you say about that? Firstly my viewing of the game was very perturbed. The first fifteen minutes I watched as I made my way to the station in Toulouse, walking past a demo with CRS and police in riot gear, obviously expecting trouble (or provoking it?) This may have been more exciting than the game. I continued on the train, when the SNCF wifi signal was strong enough. Ran to the car in the pouring rain, commentary coming from my right hand coat pocket and got the last ten minutes on my desk-top at home. I can only assume that I must have missed the quality bits of the game?
It really desperately saddens me to say this but that was a desperately poor game of football from two desperately poor sides. You got the impression both of them could have played on to midnight and the score would have remained the same. I'm sure at one time the commentator said we were matching Stevenage.........as if that was some kind of achievement. I suppose the obvious question would be matching them at what?..............footballing incompetence? Near the end, Macca, probably frustrated by the inability of his forwards to take any of their chances, struck a sweet volley from distance, with his wrong foot, which went just wide of the right post. Happily with dire quality and skills you do sometimes get some pantomime. Such was the case when a Stevenage player, without looking, tried to pass the ball back to his keeper only to find Macca standing in front of him, facing away from goal. His attempt to get it to a Blue shirt facing goal sadly came to nothing. Will have to see the replay but what would have happened if he had just jumped as the ball came towards him? Would it have trickled over the goal line????
What else to say? Two Southend players, one not long after the other, yellow carded for kicking the ball away.............totally brainless. Probably the match was perfectly summed up by, was it Stevenage's last effort on goal? The header missed the target and made its way towards the corner flag without going out of play. See you next year at Stevenage.............probably in the National League? Their fans must have been overjoyed being let back into the Stadium to watch that tripe.
Oh! I had a bloody awful day working in Toulouse.................could that have coloured the grumpiness of my report..............or was it REALLY that bad??????

 

[shrimperjon]

Positives: a draw and a clean sheet
Negative: a game that was there to be won and we had the better chances to do so. But 6 goals all season tells you where our key issues are.

We simply must get Akinola on the pitch and sign one or two more strikers as the current crop are way off the pace. Defensively there are small seeds of improvement and today I thought that Hobson and Dieng were excellent. I'm a huge fan of Clifford but have no idea why he started over Harry K who also played well when he came on

Macca and JD also had very good games and competed well. Our issues however is in the final third. We create very little but when we do we fluff our lines. The Egbri miss was a prime example, we created the chance and he had to either square to Olayinka or he must score or at least hit the target. That's three games in a row that we have missed guilt edge chances at 0-0. FGR and Bolton took advantage fortunately today Stevenage didn't.

Consider we had JW and now Clifford injured, ANG missing through Covid and Hart and Akinola unable to play and a Taylor due back this week the squad would look much stronger. The issue is we never seem to have a fully fit squad and with the embargo restrictions in place we can't improve further

This week is huge, Scunny and Grimsby won't be easy and if we can strengthen the squad somehow we may have a glimmer of hope. Think December will be the make or break for us

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

To play Taylor as wide right shows a manager trying anything to get some spark into his team. Taylor was in fact complete garbage, but it’s not right to judge a young centre back on a match where he plays up front. For that, the judgement is on Mr Martin.

I think it was great management. Nobody on here had contemplated using him like that (a very Sturrock move IMO) but if the idea was to try and keep things tight and maybe pinch it with a set piece or a goal late on like at Walsall that's exactly how the game turned out and we should have won the match after he went off. He also had a great chance in the air first half - one you'd hope a centre-half would take.

 

[Evening Echo]

SOUTHEND United were held to a drab 0-0 draw at relegation rivals Stevenage this afternoon.

Read more on this story


Help with Echo links

 

[Leicester Shrimper]

The lack of urgency at the end was a real worry for me. The points were there to be had yet at the end we were time wasting for the draw? I just don’t get it!!! We need to start winning and this was one of the easiest games to be won.

That being I can’t see us scoring even if we did get on the forward foot. We’re are sooo bereft of belief it’s ridiculous. Egbri had a great chance 80 mins in but you knew he would fluff it. He knew he would fluff it.

Best man on the pitch mccormack - nearly 37 years old. Shocking! This league is shocking, the referee today was shocking! Goodships simple passing was shocking! Acquah I don’t think I even saw him touch the ball - shocking.

Honestly I can’t bear it.

 

[Barling Magna]

The good news is that we have found one team who are worse than us. Now we only need to find one more and overtake them both and we're saved. Simples.

A poor game which we certainly should have won. McCormack was excellent today and kept going for all 94 minutes. Why he didn't score at the end rather than try to find Acquah I don't know though. Even a simple back heel would have done it I think.

Stevenage apparently have a poor forward line and midfield according to their fans but they say their defence is good and they haven't let in many goals - they should have done today.

 

[delr]

we need a proper forward line (or whatever the technical name for it is nowadays) - unless that that happens ASAP its looking like Torquay away next season - in August would be nice

 

[Tinks]

I don’t know what to think anymore if I am honest and for the first time in all the years of going to football (both home and away) I think I am finally falling out of love with football.
I really don’t see where we can go (other than down) and nothing is really inspiring within the team.
I thought Macca was our best player out there today and that he lasted 90 mins.
I still get nervous every time the ball goes near Oxley
How desperate are we for a striker? Very by the looks of it!
Unfortunately I don’t see any leaders out there and although they are trying harder and in fairness playing some good passing football I don’t see the passion or hunger from them.

We have a home game next week and it will be the first time back in the stadium and the first time this season the guys will be playing in front of a home crowd. I don’t think they are going to get off too lightly in front of us

 

[Oakley1]

shows how poor we are, and still adrift at sea heading for the storm with a hole in the lifeboat

sad to say we look doomed, would loved to be proved wrong but on todays performance I doubt that will happen