Oh we don't like to be beside the seaside vs Southend (L2)

Southend on a Tuesday night. Not a terribly appealing prospect, especially driving there by myself, but an exchange of messages on the essential Yellows message board (http://www.yellowsforum.co.uk/) had provided me with a lift from a fellow Yellow. I'm fairly keen on doing that kind of thing. Firstly it saves both parties some of their hard earned money (not to mention being more green) and it also gives me the chance to meet, and natter to, fans who I haven't met before.

So 4.45 found me lurking outside a garage in Milton Keynes waiting for my lift, looking like a yellow and blue clad male prostitiute waiting for a kerb crawler. Scoob (the fellow yellow) turned up and we were off. It is always quite a relief when stuck in a car for ages with someone you've never met before to find out that they are a decent driver, a nice chap, happy to talk and a non-smoker! Scoob is all four, and the journey down was very enjoyable. We managed to avoid a horrible traffic jam on the M25 by going on to the next junction and got to Southend with about half an hour to go until kickoff, so picked the tickets up and went to get something to eat. I'm sure there must be more to the place, but from a cursory look around the area near the ground, you could be forgiven for thinking that half the people in the town have set up fast food outlets. We settled on a kebab house - I opted for a veggie burger, chips and some sort of arabic titled version of fizzy orange for just £2. Bargain - and not too bad.

Anyway - into the ground. There seemed to be two Southend mascots, one of whom was dressed as a shrimp. Nice. The ground itself is fairly tidy, but suffers from pillar-itis, which makes finding a decent viewing point a little tricky, especially as we were all confined to the left hand side of the stand behind one of the goals. I'd guess there were 350 yellows there. People were still arriving well into the first half, so that traffic jam might well have caught some travellers.

The team was the same again, except that Heslop came in for Clist. That was a bit of an immediate worry. A midfield of Hall, Mclaren and Heslop doesn't really work for me. Mclaren sits just in front of the back three, Hall and Heslop look to get forward. Mclaren will tackle, Heslop and (to a lesser extent) Hall don't seem that interested. Although Clist hasn't been his usual self over the last couple of matches, he does try to win the ball. Ah well - let's see how it works out I thought as the teams ran onto the pitch.

Now I've had a bit of a rant about the various strips before, and tonight we wore all white, but with light blue socks. It looked awful. Whatever the 'home' kit is next year (yellow shirts please!) can we have an away kit that is significantly different, so that we don't end up with this random mishmash of bits of kit? It's not rocket science, just look at the home kits of the other clubs in the league and pick 'away' colours that means we can wear one of our two strips in every match. It looked very unprofessional indeed.

The game started with us defending the goal in front of the Us fans. As early as the first few minutes, Southend had a decent chance that their striker failed to get on the end of. And then another one. There were a few raised eyebrows in the stands, but after the first five minutes, we started to get into it a bit more. After a quarter of an hour, Beano put us ahead. Now, I'll admit that I hate the tippy tappy free kicks we take. But this time it worked, and Beano scored from close range. I still think that as a percentage, our free kicks work the goalkeeper far too little however.

We then were on top for the next 10 minutes or so, and had several decent chances including a Beano header that hit the bar. In hindsight, if we had scored during that period, I think we would have come out as winners, but as we failed to convert any of the chances, Southend were far from out of it. Their midfield started to really get hold of the match, and my pre-match fears about our lack of bite in the middle of the pitch started to come true. Our midfield simply failed to challenge for many of the loose balls and, even worse, our passing went completely to pot, so even when we did get the ball, we couldn't keep it for longer than 10 seconds.

It was no surprise when, with the ball constantly coming back at our defence, we conceded with a couple of minutes to go before half time. Our defence are developing a nasty habit of making risky passes across the face of our own goal. I'm not quite sure what Tonkin thought he was doing, and I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that the ball span awkwardly off his boot, but a Southend attack that could have been easily cleared ended up with the ball squirting across the penalty area for a Southend attacker to shoot past Clarke to equalise. Right, let's get to half time without conceding again.

Oh.

From a corner, an Southend attacker was challenged very unconvincingly in the air, the ball fell for another blue shirted Shrimp and the ball was scuffed past the floundering Clarke. From a corner. Another bloody corner. We can't defend them, and we can't score from them. I know our first team coach Andy Melville is supposed to be a nice bloke and a good technically. I don't know about that. All I can see is that we have failed to keep a clean sheet for 22 games, and can't defend a corner to save our lives. Nice bloke he might be, but on the factual evidence he isn't a good coach as far as the defence is concerned. The half time whistle blew straight after the goal with us 2-1 down, having given away two poor goals in a couple of minutes. We were all a bit shell-shocked in the stands, and I suspect on the pitch and in the dugout as well. The strikers had failed to take their chances, the midfield had given up the centre of the pitch as a lost cause and the defence had caved in yet again.

And what was worse is that we had seen us play decently for about 20 minutes. In that time we had got the ball down, got behind the poor Southend defence and passed decently. Then it had all evapourated. Well never mind, surely there would be changes made at half time. As the team wandered out for the second half, we all peered to see if there were tea stains on the white shirts and bits of china stuck in their hair. Boot marks on the back of their white shorts? Anything.

Judging by the vast majority of the second half performance, no tea cups had been injured in the half time break. The passing got worse, every header out of defence was aimed absolutely nowhere. Clist came on for Hall (who had been booked early in the match by the referee - more of him later) but it didn't make much difference. We didn't have an attempt on goal of any sort until another 15 minutes had gone, Beano heading rather weakly straight at the keeper. Surely Wilder had to make changes? He did. Heslop and Craddock came off, Potter and new boy Hackney came on. All planning was thown up into the air shortly afterwards when Batt was sent off for a mistimed challenge.

It wasn't a red card. No studs up, not two footed. Just a mistimed challenge. But the referee decided otherwise. No, that's not quite right. The Southend crowd decided, and the referee caved in. He had been doing that all match. If a Southend defender barged an Oxford player in the back, nothing. If a Southend player fell over a blade of grass and their crowd howled, it was a free kick and probably a booking. He was absolutely pathetic. We've had some incompetent refs this season, but they have generally been just useless. To both sides. Not this joker. If he could give a decision for Southend, he did. If he could ignore a foul against us, he did. The proof of this was literally a few minutes later, when a Southend player (Mohsni I think) slid in studs up straight into an Oxford players ankle, with the ball nowhere near. If Batt's was a red card, this surely had to be the same? It was a much, much worse challenge and premeditated. Sorry, I forgot. It was a Southend player who did it, so that was alright. As a match, these two 'decisions' just about finished it.

We huffed and puffed. We had a few (unthreatening) corners - surprise, surprise. Our passing stayed generally awful. Silly little flicks with the side of the boot, passing without looking up, hopeful hoofs into no-man's land. Southend just stopped us getting near their goal and we had few chances. Potter did get through once, but decided (as he often does) not to take responsibility and shoot, but to dink the ball across the goal instead. There was nobody there. SHOOT! FOR GOD'S SAKE SHOOT!

The final whistle brought the agony to an end. It was time to brave the M25 again. It was fairly clear, and once the immediate disappointment of the match started to dull a little, my chauffeur and I passed the time in the car dissecting the game.

Home not too late, trying to forget the fact that I had about 6 hours of driving to do next day.

Thoughts for the day:

Once the confidence ebbs, we lose the passing game and look very very ordinary indeed.
I don't think a single player covered themselves in glory tonight.
But Hackney looked useful. Quick, and ran with his head up.
I'd missed the reportedly awful home match against the same team, but fate was not to be cheated!
More tackling in midfield please.
We need to actually make more shooting opportunites and to use them - we can't score every goal from five yards or closer.
It's good fun to meet new fans.
No clean sheet - again.
Concede from a corner - again.
That imples that the coaching staff aren't learning from previous mistakes.
Batt will presumably be out for three games (straight red), maybe Purkiss will make us a bit more solid at the back?
Would Sangere give us a bit more solidity at corners - or maybe even be a midfield tackler?

Am I getting desperate? Not yet.

Gillingham is going to be tricky, let's hope we can turn it round. We've then got a week's rest before the next home game.

Thanks to Scoob for the lift and the conversation. If anyone wants a lift to Gillingham from MK/Northampton/Bedford, just PM me on the forum.