Post-Match Thread and Ratings Chesterfield 2-1 Southend United

[Tommy2holes]

That's it ! I've heard enough ! I'm up nooorth next Saturday, but I can't contain myself any longer. I'm gonna have to travel down to Wycombe with the kids. Can't miss the mighty blue boys while we're putting in displays like this.
Could one of you fine friends speak to the Mrs on my behalf, please. I'm scared !!

Start laying the seeds Monday so that come Saturday she will be like putty.

 

[Supa Shrimpa]

Thanks mate. Great idea. Can you babysit for us ? Just send them to bed early and watch BluesPlayer...

 

[stickyboy]

was gutted to lose but at the same time still pleased. For the first time in years I am actually enjoyed watching a Southend team play. We fight for every ball and dont let them have loads of space as we did under sturrock. We knock the ball about well and dare i say it actually look a good side. I am actually excited about this team (did i actually say that!). Yes the winner goal was bad defending which needs looking at but if we play how we have so far this season then I will have no complaints. UTB!

 

[Bromley Blue]

Seems like Paul Cook is well aware that the wrong side came away with the points yesterday:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23829937#asset

 

[Bolton Shrimper]

8's &9's all round. We were more than worth a point. if we can play like that every week we will be serious contenders. Can kind of understand where at least 5 mins of Fergie time came from and loved the way their fans sang "we are top o th'league" when they were'nt and should have known..........***** !!!

 

[maninasuitcase]

An excellent performance, but I think Brown got the tactics wrong towards the end of the match. After Eastwood scored the momentum was with us. I can understand subbing Corr because he looked Knackered, but taking off Eastwood and replacing a striker with a midfielder handed the initiative back to Chesterfield.

I have not seen Reid play yet, but surely he should have been brought on to try and snatch a winner or make a nuisance of himself upfront as Cowan does not look like he is going to do either.

 

[Rattus Norvegicus]

I too would have kept Eastwood on as he was making quite a nuisance of himself.

Certainly Cowan did very little once on ........... but then he never received the ball to his feet and was instead expected to run the channels and that produced little to nothing.

 

[Juggler90]

It's always great to win in the last minute but the fans, players and staff of Chesterfield reacted and celebrated as if they won the league and that was simply because they knew that they had (somehow) managed to beat an extremely good team. Southend United, hold your heads high. If we play like that every game, we won't have too many troubles. Despite his doubters, Brown has made us into a very hard to beat team.

 

[secondalibi]

Following an even first half, I thought that we outplayed Chesterfield in the second half. I don't know where the ref got the extra 6 mins from, but he did, and we just have to defend that corner better. I would have been happy with a point, but that late winner was a kick in the teeth.

As for the team ratings, everyone would be probably and 8 or a 9 with the exception of Prosser who I thought was poor. I really hope that Phillips can get fit again soon and can partner the impressive Thompson. Prosser never filled me with any confidence yesterday. Whenever he had the ball, I just couldn't help thinking that a mistake could happen at any second. And it was Prosser who lost his man for their winner.

- G

 

[OldBlueLady]

As for the team ratings, everyone would be probably and 8 or a 9 with the exception of Prosser who I thought was poor. I really hope that Phillips can get fit again soon and can partner the impressive Thompson. Prosser never filled me with any confidence yesterday. Whenever he had the ball, I just couldn't help thinking that a mistake could happen at any second. And it was Prosser who lost his man for their winner.

- G

There are some who just can't get over the fact that Luke Prosser has proven himself to be an extremely capable and solid centre back, I think you must be in a minority of those who feel a lack of confidence in him, most of us, I'd suggest, feel rather the opposite. He may not possess silky skills and the ability to pitch a perfect pass upfield but generally you know he will make the ball safe when under pressure and do his very best.

 

[blue57]

I wanted to sneak under the wire here to pass on to you what I hope will be an interesting take on the current SUFC team and manager after watching yesterday's game. I'm a Town (Chesterfield) fan, I'm afraid, but I type in the spirit of the old fanzine movement of which I was a part, a time, back in the late 80s and early 90s when our fan situation united far more than it divided us. Times, of course, have changed out of all recognition, but I hope that some of that spirit is left and that you won't all blow me a big fat raspberry and send me packing.

Yesterday was my first game of the season having been away on holiday, and I came back to hope that Southend, 9 points out of 9, weren't as good a team as that suggests. Turns out they - you - were. I thought your team were quite frighteningly good. Certainly worryingly good. With Brown in charge, I'm not remotely surprised. For all his declining career, you don't manage an unfancied team from Championship to Premier League without having a large amount of nous. I'm not sure either about the substitution of Eastwood, but I suspect many managers would have cut a striker at 1-1 away from home to try to secure the point. And remember too that you still had injury time pressure on us, from which you didn't quite manage a winner.

The moaning about 6 minutes is misplaced, I believe. The same 6 minutes enabled you to have 2 (or was it 3?) corners in injury time from which you could quite easily have scored, you folk here complaining wouldn't have given 6 minutes much of a thought if you'd won 2-1. So. And there will be some occasions, surely, probably at home, where you're going to score a winner or equalizer in added time and be thanking the officials. I have to add that referees don't invent added time for their own enjoyment. Time spent celebrating, discussing, arguing and messing about, time taken over substitutions, is time not spent playing football. Me, I want to see 90 minutes of play, not 84, whatever the result.

Back at your team. On yesterday's evidence I thought you were a bunch of intelligent, talented footballers, well coached and highly organised. Defensively, very good. Tight and hard working and technically very sound. I liked your left flank players too, especially in the first half where your left back, I think, a black guy, looked positive and good quality. You never know when you watch a game just why your team underperforms and by how much. What you may not know is that we have a lot of inventive players of whom much is expected. I fully expected us on August 2nd to sweep the League. We've brought in a striker who played in the Scottish Cup Final for Hibs, miraculously, who can't even make the first 11 even though he's fit, thus giving us a very good strike force of 3, supported by Gary Roberts, star of Swindon's promotion under De Canio in 2012, and really sound midfielders from Scunny and Port Vale (Ryan and Morsey). We already have an outstanding guy from Hull at the back, Liam Cooper (signed from Hull last season) and Sam Hird beside him who played in the C'ship with Donny the season before last. We also will have, when fit, again astonishingly given the record of our owner's wallet flapping, Ian Evatt, who played in the PL for Blackpool throughout 2011-12 and who was training with Blackburn when we nabbed him about 3 weeks ago. We also have a great manager, Paul Cook, who came to us last October; he won a stack of trophies in Ireland with Sligo Rovers, brought his Accrington side to our place last season who played us off the park with brilliant football. They scored three times. Fortunately for us, from five efforts the entire game, four of them went in. But now he's ours.

He and his coaching squad cost you the point, and our spending cost you the three. Roberts scored the free kick and took the most magnificent corner from which a new improved **** Balottelli (aka Armand Gnanduillet) crunched in the headed winner. I don't know quite how you defend such a corner. Wicked curl on it, at pace, swirling into the area ten yards out and pleading to be nutted in. ££ + coaching (and good scouting, bec. you'll see him scoring for us again on the telly) = Southend Utd done out of points. Last season, this wouldn't have happened. Not a chance.

At half-time I met up with some mates and we agreed that you'll be promoted this year. You look far too proficient and well organised and well coached. Some of your passing was extremely good and throughout the entire match you looked dangerous. We have good players now, and you nearly beat us without luck.

So be of very good cheer, every one of you on here. And know that the Shrimping witnesses on here to yesterday's game are telling it like it is when they say the team were really good. So they were.

My only doubt would be this: your having won their first 3 games, your team looked very very confident. What if you get a duff result next week; a dodgy 0-1 defeat, say. What will 2 consecutive defeats do to the confidence? I guess we don't know how good our teams are until they're put under some pressure. Anyway, I'm sure self-belief from results helped your performance yesterday, but it was deserved. Three wins from three earns you the right to be confident and to use the benefits of that.

It frightens me how good this League division might be this year. I know we have a far stronger squad than the one that finished 8th last time, and SUFC too are much better than last year. How many clubs are also advancing we'll only find out in time. But these are weird football times. How on earth did the Fourth Division get to be so sophisticated and with so many good players in it? Even with foreign players dominating the PL completely, thus pushing all the Brit players down a division bar a precious few, it's still weird.

So we've got 1 or our 2 fixtures against you out of the play, I can say good luck to the lot of you for the rest of the season. Long live Roots Hall and the history of the Football League of which both our clubs have long been a part.

regards,

Craig

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Far too early to say who will be up there.

It's not just about how teams respond to defeats (although momentum is huge in this division): you also need to be able to cope with the heavy pitches and the cold (someone like Assombalonga looked a world beater in the early part of the season before being bogged down once the weather turned); you need to be able to have the luck with the injuries (we got screwed last season when Timlin broke his leg and we had influential players like Tomlin, Phillips and Barker all out at the same time); you need to have the creativity to break teams down when they come away and park the bus.

There are plenty of players who have played at a higher level who drop down. Usually it's because they aren't consistent enough.

Technically though the standard is far higher across the board than it was 20 years ago. A full-back is now expected to be able to control a high-ball and bring it down with a deft touch, whereas a decade ago your best player would have got a round of applause for controlling it.

 

[OldBlueLady]

I wanted to sneak under the wire here to pass on to you what I hope will be an interesting take on the current SUFC team and manager after watching yesterday's game. I'm a Town (Chesterfield) fan, I'm afraid, but I type in the spirit of the old fanzine movement of which I was a part, a time, back in the late 80s and early 90s when our fan situation united far more than it divided us. Times, of course, have changed out of all recognition, but I hope that some of that spirit is left and that you won't all blow me a big fat raspberry and send me packing.

Hi Craig, welcome to the site and thanks for your comments. That's now two teams running where we've had good, sensible feedback on football, and it's extremely refreshing to hear that you and your mates endorse what we at Southend, are experiencing.

Phil Brown definitely has them performing and performing at a high level, I really hope your observations will prove to be correct and we'll be right up there at the business end of the season.

 

[blue57]

Hi Craig, welcome to the site and thanks for your comments. That's now two teams running where we've had good, sensible feedback on football, and it's extremely refreshing to hear that you and your mates endorse what we at Southend, are experiencing.

Phil Brown definitely has them performing and performing at a high level, I really hope your observations will prove to be correct and we'll be right up there at the business end of the season.

Thanks very much for your kind comments, OBL.

Additionally, the proviso for whether sensible predicted outcomes come to fruition does, as your fellow-Shrimp points out, is how the injury situation develops. I daresay if we lost 2 key players for long periods we'd be in dead lumber. Fortunately for us we have a much bigger squad with depth in all 3 outfield lines. I don't know what your sitch is in this respect. But lucking for Town fans, after a lot of ***** moves in the boardroom even when promoted in 2011, and chronic underfunding for the next two, for some obscure reason the money has flowed into squad building. Again, for reasons I'm not privy to, a squad building plan has been set in motion the end of which is promotion from 1 to Champ after 2-1. SUFC's having done that in the last decade (I think I'm right in saying) along with Donny and Scunny and a couple of others, that template is there to be followed. I'm gobsmacked that this level of ambition has arrived at CFC.

Back at SUFC's current team, I saw 21 of the 24 teams last season and none were as handy as you were yesterday, not even Bradford City who we played at the end of the season and scraped a 2-2 draw against. Their will to win was incredible. Technically they didn't look that hot. Port Vale didn't impress, again in the last month of the season. And the comparison is tempered with the fact that yesterday's Town 11+ was far, far stronger than the bunch we ended last season with.

So although I fully grasp some fans' tendency to caution, at least those of you who didn't get to the Whatever It's Called Stadium yesterday can know that the positive witness reports on your forum aren't just hot air. As I say, you were worryingly good.

C

 

[buffalowolf]

Isnt it good to read even after a loss , supporters are happy with the way SUFC played instead of calling for someones head.Just maybe PB has got not only the players but the backroom staff everyone at the club thinking like a championship or premiership club.Just because we play in the fourth tier of English football , dosent mean we have to think like a 4th tier club.Keep up the good work PB and i think my early prediction of a mid table finish will be way out of whack and promotion just maybe on the cards.As for SUFC best signing at present i would say RM has made that in PB.

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

Thanks very much for your kind comments, OBL.

Additionally, the proviso for whether sensible predicted outcomes come to fruition does, as your fellow-Shrimp points out, is how the injury situation develops. I daresay if we lost 2 key players for long periods we'd be in dead lumber. Fortunately for us we have a much bigger squad with depth in all 3 outfield lines. I don't know what your sitch is in this respect. But lucking for Town fans, after a lot of ***** moves in the boardroom even when promoted in 2011, and chronic underfunding for the next two, for some obscure reason the money has flowed into squad building. Again, for reasons I'm not privy to, a squad building plan has been set in motion the end of which is promotion from 1 to Champ after 2-1. SUFC's having done that in the last decade (I think I'm right in saying) along with Donny and Scunny and a couple of others, that template is there to be followed. I'm gobsmacked that this level of ambition has arrived at CFC.

Back at SUFC's current team, I saw 21 of the 24 teams last season and none were as handy as you were yesterday, not even Bradford City who we played at the end of the season and scraped a 2-2 draw against. Their will to win was incredible. Technically they didn't look that hot. Port Vale didn't impress, again in the last month of the season. And the comparison is tempered with the fact that yesterday's Town 11+ was far, far stronger than the bunch we ended last season with.

So although I fully grasp some fans' tendency to caution, at least those of you who didn't get to the Whatever It's Called Stadium yesterday can know that the positive witness reports on your forum aren't just hot air. As I say, you were worryingly good.

C

Craig, thank you for your comments. As an ex-pat who sees very few games, home or away, I can't tell you how delighted I was, (obviously, not about the final result) to have made the trip to Chesterfield last Saturday. It was one of the best games I've had the privilege to go to in many years and I really had to kick myself at times to remember that I was watching League Two football, that's a great compliment to both sides.
As a great fan of our previous manager Paul Sturrock, I have to say that his replacement by Phil Brown caused me much concern. Now I have to admit that the team PB has assembled, under severe financial constraints, the fitness levels he has achieved and the way he has got them playing, has come as a very pleasant surprise. I think he would also claim that it is not quite the finished article as he is trying to bring in a striker in the 'Assombalonga' mould, with speed and finishing that hopefully will scare the s**t out of most defences in this division.
Of course, as YB suggested, it's a bit too early to make predictions but on the evidence of Saturday I would expect both our sides to be there or thereabouts come the end of the season. This is what you would have thought but for us it necessitates a shift in expectation from one of hopes for survival or mid-table mediocrity, to belief in the chance of achieving promotion.

 

[Bearded Shrimper]

Unless Reid and/or Cowan go on a mad run think we're short up front, but otherwise looking good

 

[Beefy]

Unless Reid and/or Cowan go on a mad run think we're short up front, but otherwise looking good

This is my concern and where our friend at Chesterfield may not have the full picture. From the games I've seen I'm very happy with the team and I'm very happy with the Manager. Our problem is that Phil Brown is going to have to spend most of the season trying to fight with one arm tied behind his back because of the ongoing financial issues which are likely going to see us behind one or more transfer embargoes all season long. We're a striker short right now but Brown doesn't seem to have the capability to bring one in.

It is what it is but for as long as it is the situation I think it's going to be extremely difficult to mount a serious promotion charge.

 

[Supa Shrimpa]

I'm afraid to say, you are probably right. All we can do is just get behind the team

 

[blue57]

I'm afraid to say, you are probably right. All we can do is just get behind the team

To Super Kings and Beefy I just want to say, don't be frightened to be a bit more optimistic. I hate betting but I had to have a 20 quid with a mate of mine that we'd be top of the table at Christmas. Four games in, he can pay me now. And according to the opposition manager you should have won the game. Obviously you have the local knowledge, and you seem to have some real problems with the £££. But from the evidence you guys have put up here so far, I cannot for a minute believe you won't finish in the top 7 - there just aren't enough teams in the division with the quality of management to stop you. And you have 9 points in the bank already. And how is your Fred not going to score 25 goals if he stays fit?

Much as teams here in T4 try to play football, I didn't see any team at our ground last season (I missed Gillingham, however) that made my eyes pop, with the exception of Accrington S, which caused us to steal their manager. We just didn't have a good enough team to win enough home games to make top 7 - and our Paul Cook was stuck with the previous regime's coaching staff.

Many many years of following football closely have led me to 2 causes of success: your players and your manager. Very obvious, I know, but if you think about it it determines everything. We were doomed to relegation from L1 in 2012 after 5 games - we'd sold our key striker and bought no new players. We were bottom of the league and stayed there in May. There are many sh*t or mediocre managers in British football, I think, and if you have one of those, then your stuck, even if your playing strength is good. I guess there are teams of quality pros who have carried their manager and won promotion, but not many. So you have Phil Brown. You know how good your players are, not me. But it seems clear that of the 2 ultimate issues, you have one in the bag.