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sufcintheprem

This is a modified caption
Without wanting to dent the enthusiasm that has arisen on here, I think we've played much better this season and been soundly beaten. How Ipswich didn't score is something of a mystery to me but if endeavour is enough to win football matches then we surely deserved this game.

My biggest problem was our lack of any sort of control in the second half. We had somehow come out of a fairly even first half two nil up with a slice of fortune and some very determined play in the box from Clarke but we failed to protect our lead. Ipswich were visibly pressing us more but in that situation, we have to exert more control on the game. If we had kept the ball better for five minutes after half time, we would have killed the game off and maybe won by more. As it was, with the exception of Bradbury, we gave the ball up at every opportunity, staunchly refusing to play the ball on the ground and barely stringing three passes together. This allowed Ipswich to control the tempo and to camp in our third.

I didn't think we were particularly cohesive but individually, we seemed to do quite well. Freddy peeled off their back two in a way that strikers rarely manage (I was informed) and I was really heartened by this after mentioning his movement last week. He still has work to do, particularly staying onside but that was much better and showed vast improvement.

There were also many plusses to take from this performance though. Obviously the application was superb - every player fought for every ball and the workrate to support team mates was excellent from front to back. The defending was particularly dogged, too. Clarke typified our wholehearted approach but was ably supported by Sodje who improved as the match wore on and, for the most part, the central midfield pairing who picked up the pieces.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the performance of Francis. I can only recall one moment where he looked as though he was going to slip in to a lapse that has characterised his Southend career to date but he seemed to think this at the same time as me and cleared in to the crowd. Going forwards, he was at his rampant best. There's a good chance that he's as good as any in the squad at carrying the ball with pace and on several occasions he delivered the sort of ball that gives goalkeepers nightmares. A few weeks ago I suggested that in terms of potential, he may be one of the best two or three in the squad and this performance underlined why. If he can perform like this every week, I even wonder whether we could hold on to him.

So overall, I think we put in the effort but didn't play particularly well and relied on a few slices of luck to take us to three points in this one.

Still, it's a funny old league. My mate's bird who has been reporting on Ipswich games this season (and will shortly be taking up Southend reporting duties for some reason) said that Ipswich played better on Saturday than against Hull and yet came off five goals worse in the result. As long as the application from players stays at the same level as yesterday, we should expect to get some lucky breaks as well as some unlucky times and we can certainly start talking about how we can survive.

A lot of work to be done yet though.
 

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