Post-Match Thread and Ratings Southend United 0-2 Crewe

[bazzashrimper]

My first chance to post. Clearly a poor performance, probably only Clohessy and Grant started and played well. Hall was decent as a sub. Soares was about the best I've seen him in the first half, but thats not saying much.

Formation was crazy - didn't make sense.

What really was evident was the amount we are missing Corr and probably Blair up front. We never looked like holding the ball up, ok the service was poor but it usually is at L2 level and the men up front have to work hard for the team. Patterson chased a bit, but won't get into any situation where he may get hurt. Thats not gonna work in L2 (maybe in L1) so loan time if it were me in charge. Fairhurst and Crawford worked hard, but are not hold up players - and Jarvis didn't get long enough. The trouble is that Sturrock had no real option up front (although Jarvis on earlier with his pace may have changed it a bit). However since Corr and Blair have been injured he has brought in 2 strikers as cover, but neither of them are cover as they can't hold the ball up - the wrong type of player, which is Sturrocks fault.

Morris 4 - At fault for the 2nd goal, handling was poor. When Coughlan went up front for the last 5 mins all his kicks went towards Crawford!
Clohessy 7 - Not his fault the rest were so poor
Barker 5 - Gave the ball away carelessly / dangerously at times, not his usual standards
Coughlan 4.5 - Why the long ball?
Prosser 4 - Better than port vale, but long ball by default. Lost his man for the first goal.
Herd 5 - Some decent forward play, but the lad cannot defend
Grant 6 - Poor for Grant, but still one of our best players
Timlin 4 - One great bit of skill, but passing was awful
Soares 4.5 - OK first half, disappeared in the second
Patterson 3 - No bottle. Poor service, but as the target
Fairhurst 4 - Tussled well, but ultimately nothing came from it.

Subs
Hall 7 - Some excellent crosses came in. Should have started
Crawford 4 - Same as Fairhurst
Jarvis 5 - Not long enough to earn a mark and not fair to mess up his pringello.

 

[MattLloyd]

First of all I think Anthony Grant has been, hands down, our best player this season, however, I will probably upset a lot on here now by saying that I thought Grant had a real poor game. Both attacks which led to goals came through our midfield, both times Grant failed to track back and allowed the player to get past him. He was in my opinion trying to do everything but achieving nothing in the game. Now because he shows a bit more desire than others does that make it right for him to be abused less than the other players?

Think we need to get a bit of perspective on the game. There wasn't a single good player playing for Southend, all were below par and poor. It is up to Sturrock to get some confidence into these players and get them playing as a team, if he fails to do this then he will have lost the changing room and we will struggle everytime we play a game, especially at RH where the team have the added heat of the abusive home fans on their backs. This club needs to take a long hard look at itself and see in which direction we want to go, because at the moment it's all the way down!

 

[alginon1]

I don’t understand this – why would anybody mark PROSSER 4 and above.
This is one of the most inept performances I’ve ever seen at Roots Hall.
Regardless of the system played, whether it be wrong or right there is no excuses for continually
passing the ball to the opposition. He needs to look up a bit more!
Two players did it for me and that was Grant and Clohessy. However, neither deserved more that a 5 in a dismal afternoon.

 

[WESTY_SUFC]

Why were we worse when we switched to 4-4-2 then?

Simple. As soon as they went 1-0 up Dario Gradi went 4-5-1 and packed the midfield. It was then a scenario where we were chasing the game and they could couter-attack

 

[EastStandBlue]

Simple. As soon as they went 1-0 up Dario Gradi went 4-5-1 and packed the midfield. It was then a scenario where we were chasing the game and they could couter-attack

That still doesn't explain why some of the players had no idea where they were supposed to be after going to the familiar 4-4-2. Herd was playing some quasi role somewhere between left-back, centre-back and left wing on his own, causing Barker to drag himself over to the left to accomodate while Herd went AWOL, Soares was reinventing himself as a central midfielder and Grant was in a world of his own, charging around the pitch like a lunatic.

The fact PS refused to take the blame for Saturday's performance leads me to believe they worked on the formation/tactic in training and just didn't take to it on the field.

 

[Smiffy]

That still doesn't explain why some of the players had no idea where they were supposed to be after going to the familiar 4-4-2. Herd was playing some quasi role somewhere between left-back, centre-back and left wing on his own, causing Barker to drag himself over to the left to accomodate while Herd went AWOL, Soares was reinventing himself as a central midfielder and Grant was in a world of his own, charging around the pitch like a lunatic.

The fact PS refused to take the blame for Saturday's performance leads me to believe they worked on the formation/tactic in training and just didn't take to it on the field.

Or perhaps PS didn't pick the team or formation on Saturday?....

 

[EastStandBlue]

Or perhaps PS didn't pick the team or formation on Saturday?....

Well, he said he picked the formation to accompany for Crewe's tactics which, given Moshni's absence and Coughlan's lack of pace, could've been the right decision to make. In the first half Crewe got bodies forward very quickly and pressed against the backline with a forward three, with the opposite winger joining the attack and the full-back taking his place on the wing.

Had we successfully negated Crewe and had Fairhurst tapped in his open goal for the three points, PS would've been lauded for the change.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Simple. As soon as they went 1-0 up Dario Gradi went 4-5-1 and packed the midfield. It was then a scenario where we were chasing the game and they could couter-attack

A tactic that they could easily have utilised had we started 4-4-2 and tried to take the game to them (as people who are complaining that 5-3-2 at home is far too negative are implying that we should have done).

It also fails to explain why so many players looked lost when playing 4-4-2.

 

[Jedi Shrimper]

Sturrock obviously tried to stop Crewe with the his formation but it didn’t work. I didn’t think it would be possible to be worse than we were against Lincoln but we managed it, at least then we kept it on the deck. Messing around with formations we haven’t tried before in a team that’s still learning to play together doesn’t help the players. This was Sturrock’s fault, but that doesn’t make him a bad manager all of a sudden.


Morris 5.5 - Average performance marred by the 2nd goal, we made a total hash of it and Morris should have done better either stayed on his line or been more decisive & commanding.
Clohessey 7 MOM - On a poor day he was the stand out player for me, seems consistent, revelled in his wingback role.
Herd 5 - Did ok, but without protection left us exposed down the left side and had a strange tendancy to drift inside.
Coughlan 3 - Expected to see him marshalling the defence using his experience. But was slow & indecisive and hoofed it long at every opportunity, oppitomized the game today. At fault (with Morris) for 2nd goal. Prosser has a excuse of lack of experience, what's Coughlan's?
Barker 6.5 - Played well but couldn't plug the gaps.
Prosser 5 - His first game for an age & in an unfamiliar formation. Gave away pen and at fault for 1st goal. Did his headers, but knocking long balls / crosses into the box shouldn’t be his reponsibility.
Timlin 3 - One of the worst performances by a CM I’ve seen. Could not find another blue shirt unless they were 2 yards away or backwards. How he stayed on the pitch when we had Simpson & Zaboub on the bench was beyond me.
Soares 5.5 - Did well first half in CM, big improvement from Lincoln, but 2nd half seemed to lose confidence.
Grant 7 - Did his absolute best and went very close twice, but he can't carry the entire team.
Paterson 3 - Ok so he had no supply but he didn’t show any effort & or spine, a couple of good performances in cups doesn’t cut it.
Fairhurst 6 - Slogged his guts out, held the ball up, made runs. Filled the "Blair" role well, but yes should have scored.


The Subs
Hall 6.5 - Dangerous.
Jarvis 3 - Didn’t notice any difference from Paterson tbh.
Crawford 6 - Worked hard but didn’t get a sniff.
​

We miss Corr massively, I haven’t seen Easton yet but you can tell we miss him alot. Was disappointed not to see Zaboub get a run out, hope he’s the man to give us some creativity.

 

[john]

A very poor performance on Saturday. I'm not against 3-5-2 in principle, but the left and right centre-backs need to be ready to move over and provide extra cover wide since the opposition will always have extra players there. Prosser in particular failed to do that, and when Gradi had been able to point this out to his players at half-time they exploited the gaps and absolutely over-ran us at the beginning of the second half. We then never recovered after going the goal down, and it seems pretty widely accepted that we were by far the worse of the two teams throughout. I have to say I enjoyed watching Crewe playing good football which made the game bearable to a certain extent.

I'm no Blair Sturrock fan, but we actually missed him Saturday. Either him or Corr has to be playing otherwise we have nobody who can hold the ball up, and therefore we look terrible. (For future reference, I am saying that when Corr is injured, Sturrock has to play. Any other time, he shouldn't be allowed near the pitch.)

Morris - 5. At fault for the second goal. Big mistake and not much positive shown at all.
Herd - 4. Much as I like the lad, he was rubbish.
Coughlan - 6. I thought he did OK, neither goal being his fault.
Barker - 6. I'm a real fan of his, though he tired and made a couple of mistakes towards the end.
prosser - 3. Truly awful. Gave the (blatant) penalty away, lost his man for the first goal, lost the ball every time he touched it, including once where instead of passing square to a midfielder (Timlin) he hoofed the ball into an empty penalty area. Sometimes you just have to accept that there's players that can do some things better than you...that bad, selfish decision vexes me more than his lack of ability.
Clohessy - 4. Terrible, and looked like a bull in a china shop going forward.
Grant - 7. Our best player by a mile, and on another day would have ended the game with 2 goals. The 3-5-2 actually gave him more freedom to get forward and suited him, and he became less effective after the switch to 4-4-2.
Soares - 5. Better once on the wing, useless while playing centre-mid.
Timlin - 5. I thought he was having a good game first half, but had a terrible 10 minute spell half-way through the second half and kept giving the ball away from then on.
Paterson - 4. Crap long ball football doesn't suit him, but that's no excuse. He looked very poor and let their defender get in front of him every single time.
Fairhurst - 3. Kept turning his back on the ball, could have scored but was a bit flat footed (the chance is shown on the BBC online highlights) and generally did nothing throughout.

Hall - 5. Didn't touch the ball for the 1st 10 minutes he was on, then his first touch was a dangerous cross, then I don't think I saw him again for the rest of the game.
Crawford - 6 Again, things looked better when he came on. That's not saying much, though.
Jarvis - 3. Did nothing when he came on.

 

[Kris]

Bloody hell, I've just watched the extended highlights. How on earth did Fairhurst not score? And who exactly is Rhys Taylor? Good old BBC.

 

[Medway Blue]

Bloody hell, I've just watched the extended highlights. How on earth did Fairhurst not score? And who exactly is Rhys Taylor? Good old BBC.

Rhys Taylor is Crewe's goalkeeper, isn't he? On loan from Chelsea?

 

[Kris]

Rhys Taylor is Crewe's goalkeeper, isn't he? On loan from Chelsea?

Ah, OK, that sort of explains it. The reporter got mixed up and referred to Morris as Taylor and I had assumed he'd completely lost the plot and thought Rhys Evans was in goal for us but called him Taylor. Anyway, er, good old BBC. :winking:

 

[GrumpyBlue]

I warned everyone that as this was my first match of the season and that a crap result would occur - still luckily for the Blues and everybody else my next game is scheduled to be Torquay away in February - time for some wins before I put the mockers on it!

For what its worth here are my ratings:-

Morris - 6
Clohessy - 6
Coughlan - 5
Prosser - 3
Barker - 5
Herd - 4 - I`ve given up giving him the benefit of the doubt
Soares - 5
Timlin - 5 - why have we extended his loan?
Grant - 7 MOM
Paterson - 3 - no service though - looked a bit lazy (or was it fed up)
Fairhurst - 5

Subs:-

Hall - 6
Crawford - 5
Jarvis - 4

Referee:- from another planet

I could be wrong as I am going a bit deaf but the chanting from the West Stand sounded to me like `Going Down`

Despite the above I am not despondent - have seen plenty of equivalent or worst rubbish at the Hall in my 50-plus years of attending - we are just a 4th division team - may get better - may get worse - it will not stop me supporting the Blues

 

[davewebbsbrain]

I warned everyone that as this was my first match of the season and that a crap result would occur - still luckily for the Blues and everybody else my next game is scheduled to be Torquay away in February - time for some wins before I put the mockers on it!

For what its worth here are my ratings:-

Morris - 6
Clohessy - 6
Coughlan - 5
Prosser - 3
Barker - 5
Herd - 4 - I`ve given up giving him the benefit of the doubt
Soares - 5
Timlin - 5 - why have we extended his loan?
Grant - 7 MOM
Paterson - 3 - no service though - looked a bit lazy (or was it fed up)
Fairhurst - 5

Subs:-

Hall - 6
Crawford - 5
Jarvis - 4

Referee:- from another planet

I could be wrong as I am going a bit deaf but the chanting from the West Stand sounded to me like `Going Down`

Despite the above I am not despondent - have seen plenty of equivalent or worst rubbish at the Hall in my 50-plus years of attending - we are just a 4th division team - may get better - may get worse - it will not stop me supporting the Blues

I saw Timlin's step and turn over the ball to make the Crewe player look a right mug on Saturday. He can stay another month as long as he promises to do that again...It's got to make Soccer AM next week.

 

[GrumpyBlue]

I saw Timlin's step and turn over the ball to make the Crewe player look a right mug on Saturday. He can stay another month as long as he promises to do that again...It's got to make Soccer AM next week.

Yes that was good but the rest was average

 

[GrumpyBlue]

Almost forgot:-

Corr - 0 (is that right BB:hilarious:)

 

[bkw]

re part of earlier posting

' Timlin 3 - One of the worst performances by a CM I’ve seen. Could not find another blue shirt unless they were 2 yards away or backwards. How he stayed on the pitch when we had Simpson & Zaboub on the bench was beyond me.'


Unfortunately Simpson didnt start nor was he on the bench - I saw somewhere he had had a virus all week - hopefully he will be fit for Saturday and CM

 

[yogi bear up the cagire]

Bloody hell, I've just watched the extended highlights. How on earth did Fairhurst not score? And who exactly is Rhys Taylor? Good old BBC.

I've just managed to look at the highlights............with the sound turned off! Really looked as though the first-half was OK. We really could have had three before they scored...........it just wasn't going to be our day. The Fairhurst miss looks staggering but perhaps wasn't as easy as it seemed , looked as though he dithered about how to make contact with the ball...........perhaps he should have just thrown himself at it! Their second, where Morris flapped. looked as though he was put off by the defender, who did or did not make contact with the ball?...................... Presumably, he should have called for it?