Official Match Thread Southend United 0-2 Newcastle United

[BILLERICAY BLUE]

We all see things differently and sometimes where we sit can make a big difference , it doesn't mean one person is wrong and another is right . Theoir is quite a mixed view on Sokolik on this thread. I thought of the pair of centre backs Sokolik looked far better. Edjenguele looked very nervous to me. On one hand you could argue that he was effective, but in the sense of an old fasioned lump pf a centre back . He actually reminded me of Carlton Palmer in the way he moved (not a good look). I'm not saying that he isn't any good, but I didn't see anything last night that screamed 'sign me' .

Yep, that's exactly how I saw it. Sokolik looked like a centre back, whereas Billy Edge just looked all arms and legs. I was trying to think of what he reminded of, and Carlton Palmer just about summed him up.

 

[mrsblue]

The service to Williams was at best comical,either high balls 2/3 feet too high or passes driven with such pace he would need 4 feet to trap the ball,when he had the ball he was generally tidy with one pass out wide sublime,he then chased back to make a decent tackle in his own area..

Not saying he will do the business at this level,but Jesus give him at least a sporting chance to make the grade.

 

[united we stand]

He looks more like Akinfenwas love child:winking:

I was thinking the same thing, year after uear we ahd thread son here on 'would you like to see Akinfenya at Roots Hall' and I was thinking we are going to have our very own own body double soon if he keeps on

80th minute we buggered off,had enough of watching us make the Geordies look really really good,we sat too deep,zero service for the forwards,thought Williams was decent .

Shelvey ran the show with an excellent range of passing.

shame you didn't stay, you would have seen an excellent bit of skill from Mooney resulting in the save of the match from their keeper. I didn't think we made them look good, in fact in the first half if you were a nmeutral watching and were told that one teams players were in the prem last season and the other team was in league two 2 years ago you would have laughed. Yes there aas a difference, but I didn't feel it was ridiculous.

ps - when you are doing your Jason william stats at some point this season will this count as a start with no goal :winking:

 

[tommy tucker]

Was not there last night .But taking into account all the right ups on hear . Most seemed to say Murray should be given a contract along with the two center backs . I hope Phil brown agrees with what has been said . Nile Ranger does worry me slighty if offered a contract while carrying this knock .One will he be fit for the riggers of league football .And two will he spend more time on the treatment table than the pitch . Only time will tell .

 

[leroyjean]

shame you didn't stay, you would have seen an excellent bit of skill from Mooney resulting in the save of the match from their keeper.

It wasn't just Mooney, the whole move was worth the gate money. 4 or 5 slick passes, the last being a fast low cross. But there we go, there's always people for whom getting home and to bed is more important than putting up with the football.

 

[Sleaford Shrimper]

As someone who can't get to many matches any more I thank all of you who have posted on this thread. It's good to see a range of opinions and to be able to pick out some general trends. The impressions I have gained after reading all the comments thus far are:

1. There are concerns about our ability to defend reliably with just Barrett, Thompson and the two current trialists available in central defence.
2. In the midfield area, there is a lack of pace in getting the ball up to our front players and a shortage of creativity in the central area.
3. Largely as a result of the previous point, the front players are living on limited service and not really able to show how good (or poor) they are.
4. Apart from some changes in personnel, we seem to be in not much better shape than we were in the latter part of last season. We may even be weaker in central defence than we were at the beginning of last season with Bolger and Prosser on the books.

If my impressions are correct, I don't feel confident that we'll be in the mix for promotion with the present personnel, particularly if we lose any more of our better players to injury. I hope I'm wrong on all counts.

 

[rigsby]

My first look at a lot of the players but last night was a difficult match to make completely fair judgement. On the one hand we couldn't attack enough to look at the forwards but neither did they so how can we really know about the 2 CB's.

Despite what some have said this was not a FA cup game so we can't go chasing and booting Newcastle so yes we did have to sit back and the likes of Shelvey looked good, without creating loads of chances. What did people expect on a nice night in July, a knee high challenge from the new Deegan, just to let them know their not going to have an easy time at fortress RH.

The new keeper ticked a lot of boxes. Nice and tall handled ok, kicked well on his right (left is a bit weak). Tipped over a cracking 25 yarder from Shelvey and came and smothered one in the second half, although his initial sprint to the ball looked abit slower than perhaps Ted.

No chance for the first, great finish. The second maybe, as some have said, Bentley at his best would have got a hand to it. But lets not Judge him against Bentley, he has the toughest job to do this season for our team, so lets give him our full support as you simply can't expect any keeper no matter who, to replace a £1million player.

The 2 CB's neither were tested enough from crosses, corners or set pieces to make any proper judgement. What was disappointing was that when we had some corners late on The Edge drifted up far to deep beyond the far post. For once we delivered right between the posts, six yards out. Not one blue shirt within 10 feet. If your as tall as the Edge and on trial get in where it counts and show me something.

First half Newcastle did not hold back in defence and got stuck in with the immobile Williams from behind. Nothing dangerous but they were not going to let him use his only strength, his strength. We did win a number of free kicks but the normal not good enough service was delivered by Coker. A left footer, on the left pulling a slow paced floaty effort away from goal is the easiest set piece to defend.

Again from a good area out on the right he hit it to high and deep so an unmarked Sokolik could only back peddle and not get enough power from a difficult angle. It won't matter who we sign if we don't get the likes of McLaughlin or Woody on set pieces we will have another poor return this season.

Bridge some nice touches same as McGlashan but obviously bearing in mind the opposition it was difficult to show us what they can do.

Murray up front worked hard, with plenty of movement across the line. Showed his lack of pace when Atkinson put him through first half, but if he had pace and could finish he would not be on trial with us.

When Cox came on the game, at 2-0 and with lots of subs, had died a bit. So again some nice Hunt like flicks with his head and one choked shot was all we had to see.

Two good chances came our way when we crossed early and without fuss. Coker in the first half which fell to Bridge, I believe and maybe he could of hit it first time but his touch was still good but the shot was blocked by some up a level defending.

O'Neil in the second half found Mooney and their keeper made the save of the night late on.

Some other late cameos by a couple of our youngsters was good to see. Shame about our midfield injuries as they will miss the whole pre season and start. However we have some good players signed and some very promising young talent coming through so lets look forward and be positive. :thumbsup:

 

[secondalibi]

Sokolik looked like a centre back, whereas Billy Edge just looked all arms and legs. I was trying to think of what he reminded of, and Carlton Palmer just about summed him up.

Billy scares the life out of me. Not only because everytime the ball goes anywhere near him I have no idea what he's going to do, but I don't think he knows either. Also, he might be the most left footed player I've ever seen. Does he even know he's got a right foot?

 

[united we stand]

As someone who can't get to many matches any more I thank all of you who have posted on this thread. It's good to see a range of opinions and to be able to pick out some general trends. The impressions I have gained after reading all the comments thus far are:

1. There are concerns about our ability to defend reliably with just Barrett, Thompson and the two current trialists available in central defence.
2. In the midfield area, there is a lack of pace in getting the ball up to our front players and a shortage of creativity in the central area.
3. Largely as a result of the previous point, the front players are living on limited service and not really able to show how good (or poor) they are.
4. Apart from some changes in personnel, we seem to be in not much better shape than we were in the latter part of last season. We may even be weaker in central defence than we were at the beginning of last season with Bolger and Prosser on the books.

If my impressions are correct, I don't feel confident that we'll be in the mix for promotion with the present personnel, particularly if we lose any more of our better players to injury. I hope I'm wrong on all counts.

The thing I would add though, is we were playing Newcastle, some people seem to have forgotten that. Of their starting 11. only two, the keeper and Hayden were not playing in the prem last year. The others made between 10 and 34 appearences in the prem , averageing 25. Are people really surprised that we didn't create that much and didnt have lots of possesion ?

I would turn it round and say that we didn't start with our strongest 11 and still held them at half time. They didn't dominate with chance after chance, one goal came from an error from Atkinson and a wonder strike and we 'almost' scored at the end. I have seen Bentley have to make far more saves than Oxley had to last night . I thought we did all right , if a player comes of second best against a Prem player I'm not too sure on how much that tells us to be honest

forgot to add it was good seeing the youngsters play . I know it was only 10 mins but I have never seen Kypriamou play before at any level and I very much liked what I saw

 

[jaffa1]

Goals at bottom of this link ;

http://www.themag.co.uk/2016/07/sou...trikes-anita-gouffran-watch-newcastle-united/

 

[Blues 'n twos]

He looks more like Akinfenwas love child:winking:

Only that Akinfenwa can hold the ball up, and hasnt got the touch of a Tank, despite looking like one!

Williams 1st touch all night ...woeful.

 

[steve54]

Williams 2nd touch is always a sliding tackle.

 

[leeblue]

Extremely difficult to form opinions on one friendly against a team that will win the championship this season....in fact id say ridiculous to do so.
I though sokilok looked OK on the whole... One rushed clearance went a bit crazy....pace wise thought he looked very good.
We are not going to come up.against that class of player this season so again difficult to come to any conclusions.
I will say we need a CM sharpish though.

 

[Tommy2holes]

Williams 2nd touch is always a sliding tackle.

He is not good enough. End of. Send him out on loan to somewhere like daggers and see how he fairs.

 

[West Stand Wes]

Funny how people perceive these games differently. For me, out of our trialist CB's Edjenguele was better. Sokolik to me looked shaky and not at all composed, either rushed into a not particularly effective clearance (that corner he gave away a particular 'low light') or just played sideways to Barrett, felt a little like he was an accident waiting to happen - to me Edjenguele was more commanding in the air and looked more comfortable playing next to Thompson.

Hard to comment on our strikers as they did lack service last night, so Williams or Murray never had the chance to make a huge impact, although for me Williams looks so far off 1st team level it does make you wonder why he got a new contract. All for giving youngsters a chance, but not if they aren't any good! He has bulked up a lot, but only won 1/2 headers, often timed his jump so poorly he had hit the ground again before the defender had even got his head on it, and his first touch was generally woeful, didn't have an influence on the game at all. Murray at least looked a little lively with the ball and would have had a chance in the 1st half if he wasn't playing against a couple of very quick and athletic centre halves - we won't have them every week in League 1. Shame as it seems like his time with us is up.

Thought McLaughlin looked sharp when he came on and Cox and Mooney I think, if we play to their strengths, could be a really good partnership together. Both made a couple of intelligent runs/passes and a couple of our best passing moves in the last 10 came with them involved, Mooney unlucky not to score at the end after a Darlow save that De Gea would have been proud of. All in all a decent performance - if not for poor management early last season that Newcastle team is easily of Premier League quality and we didn't embarrass ourselves. When did MOTM award in friendlies start happening or is that something I've missed down the years?

 

[Ayrshire Blue]

He is not good enough. End of. Send him out on loan to somewhere like daggers and see how he fairs.

He should have just been binned at the end of last season. We've released youngsters who have shown a lot more than Williams ever has and somehow he got a new deal. One of the worst 'strikers' I've seen here in about 10 years. I've never actually seen him have a shot. Woeful first touch and looks overweight. No improvement in about 3 years.

 

[kentblues]

He should have just been binned at the end of last season. We've released youngsters who have shown a lot more than Williams ever has and somehow he got a new deal. One of the worst 'strikers' I've seen here in about 10 years. I've never actually seen him have a shot. Woeful first touch and looks overweight. No improvement in about 3 years.

Given that half the people on here thought Sokolik had a great game, and the other half who were sat in the same stadium watching the same game believe the exact opposite, then frankly I think I'll just go with the coaching staff who I am ever more convinced know what they are doing in comparison. If we all signed players and picked the team without doubt the club would be in the Essex Senior League by now (at best)..

 

[Ayrshire Blue]

Given that half the people on here thought Sokolik had a great game, and the other half who were sat in the same stadium watching the same game believe the exact opposite, then frankly I think I'll just go with the coaching staff who I am ever more convinced know what they are doing in comparison. If we all signed players and picked the team without doubt the club would be in the Essex Senior League by now (at best)..

Which ironically is where Jason Williams should be plying his trade. (At best)

 

[cerbera45]

Felt sorry for Bridge stuck out on the left-wing for much of the 2nd half, hope this isn't a sign on things to come. Needs to be playing just behind the forward(s) or not at all.

 

[Kev29]

Williams...... He is bad, I said this at Wakering last year, that fist touch is so so bad, he needs endless practice, the best method is have someone fire heavy passes, shots at you, trying to control the ball under powerful passes, master it! Normal power passes will then be simple. Teddy Sheringham said he use to whack the ball endlessly against a wall, this gained him touch and control.

Why was he given another year? NO!