Spoken to a few people who thought...

Hold fast to what you saw. And report as you saw it.

You stuck your neck over the top this week -pointing out that we're not playing well.

When we've won, if you do anything other than think the final score is everything, on here you're a sitting duck.

So keep quacking.

 

I'll take your word for it, mate. The replays show it to be very marginal, I'd have said onside myself. I was surprised at the time even, then the replays confirmed it. But that's from a TV angle so if you were in line, you'll do for me.

Ours is about a foot onside via replays.

 

Don't think it was an even game 17 shots to 7 suggests that we had more than an edge.

 

But using that logic there are 2 teams who are on course for higher points totals so we'd have to be lucky to go up automatically

 

I'm not going to bother reading that Jay...the simple fact is that the team who are making the most chances are generally the team who have played the best football on the day, that's the whole point of the game, making chances to score goals....if it had been 17 to 7 in Southend's favour I would have agreed that we were fortunate.

 

I thought I'd post opinions from the travelling fans' forum - you need to register to see their opinions. They seem less prone to in-fighting than us!

View from the Shrimpers' forum is generally regret at not taking their early chances but recognising we came more and more into it and there were no complaints that we edged it, e.g., ("We were nowhere near equal to them in the second half"/"as for the score, I'd say it was about fair"/"ended up perhaps deservedly losing").

"Paid the price for negative tactics IMO. Played really well and had the better of the first half by getting in their faces, pressing and looking to attack. Then in the second half they come out, either on Chris Powell’s orders, or by their own accord, doing none of us those things and just sitting back and timewasting playing for a 0-0. A risky tactic relying on conceding no goals for a point when you can’t defend from set pieces."

"How depleted the squad is, is irrelevant. The tactics in the first half were spot on and we would have gone in 2 or 3-0 up with more clinical finishing. The tactics clearly changed in the second half to be more defensive and settle for a point instead of the 3 we went out trying to earn in the first half. We were nowhere near equal to them in the second half"

"The home fans complained loudly about timewasting and they may have a point it seemed to take an age for us to take throw ins and goal kicks which doesn't necessarily play to our strengths.
as for the score, I'd say it was about fair, the goal was coming and we seemed to be clinging on rather than pushing forward for a large part of the second half"

"A game of two halves because of the strong wind blowing into the away stand. We made good use of it in the first half, they made better use of it in the second half.
Unfortunately, we didn't learn from the earlier corner that Barnsley had where the wind caught the ball and swept it on to the bar.
For the goal, again the wind seemed to sweep the ball towards our net, catching out our defenders and Oxley. I thought the ball might have gone in anyway even if no one had touched it."

"They were always going to be a threat at corners due to Moore. His goal scoring abilities are not new to us. He was our undoing yet again. But considering the formation options and personnel that CP had available today we went toe to toe with a Top 4 team and got knocked out in the final round. "

"Grr, didn't take our chances in the first half and ended up perhaps deservedly losing after Barnsley had hit the crossbar twice."

 

What if it hits one post, runs along the goal line, hits the other post, then comes back out?

 

The whole point of the article is that a shot on goal is not necessarily a good chance and shots on goal is not a good indicator of good chances.

 

To be honest I think there are two opposing views in this thread and both are credible imho.

We were definitely visibly and statistically the better team over the full 90 minutes - does that mean you 'deserve' the win? I don't know, but getting the goal does, in my book.

On the other hand, there is cause for concern in that we really should have been one down early on as the opposition came out of the blocks much better than us yet again and missed a sitter after just three minutes. A better team would have taken that chance and then who knows how the rest of the game would have gone - it could have been Shrewsbury mark II.

The second worry is that when their approach was to press us and attack us on the break we looked second best and vulnerable. That is exactly how Cov, Charlton and Shrewsbury played us and we need to find a way to deal with it. If there is a battle for which team gets to use the press it seems to be us that loses it, probably because we have a tendency to get bullied, don't know the 'dark arts' very well and have no experienced leader on the pitch.

I normally rate Chris Powell as a manager but the obvious shift to sitting back, timewasting and playing for a point, played right into our hands and made it much easier for us to dominate, as we increasingly did and could have run out bigger winners in the end, if not for our wasteful final balls and profligate finishing.

On a final note, I though Jason Demetriou for them was excellent even playing out of position. I've always rated him since his Walsall days and would love to see someone like him at right back for us, rather than his royal laziness, Cavare.

 

Happy with the result and overall we just about deserved it, although there were times during the game where we looked second best (mainly in the the first half). If the sign of a good team is grinding out wins without playing at your best, then by definition we must be a good team.

My only concern is our lack of width. It's hampering our attacks and putting too much pressure on our fullbacks. Cavare and Pinillos are decent players, but without wingers they're exposed time and time again. Thankfully we're only playing against League One strikers, otherwise we'd be in trouble.

Be interesting to see how Stendel sets us up when Woodrow is up to speed.

 

Finding Barnsley actually thinking :-/
Just trying to lighten the mood.
Not mine - the threads.

 

Fair enough, sorry, misunderstood you.

 

Well said that man. I've seen "should of" instead of "should have" a few time on this forum. As far as I am aware there is no verb "to of"!

 

Apart from the first ten minutes when we seemingly forgot we were playing I thought we did well. It's very difficult when a side sets out to spoil and time waste away from home - and we've got 5 central midfielders with little width.

But we had enough chances to win by 2 or 3 - woodwork twice, goal disallowed, Potts chance at end of first half, numerous swing and misses from Thiam in front of the Ponty following excellent pull backs.

I'd say it was just about a fair result. Being objective I would say it was a 2-1 game.

 

You ok Jay? Bit hypersensitive I reckon.

If you can’t see that people giving a differing opinion isn’t them just saying you are wrong, then maybe an Internet forum of fans sharing opinions isn’t for you.

 

I felt it was just more of the same in terms of it been a game where we were the better side & deserved to win but at the same time we gave them enough chances for us to easily lose or draw the game.

I’m probably been harsh as I’ve not been at any of the 4-0’s but I’ve never seen us put in a good 90 minute performance. I don’t know if that’s down to the manager or the players but I keep thinking we got away with that one when I come away from games.

Don’t get me wrong I’m enjoying winning games but I can see why Jay’s worried.

On the offsides, I thought both were on at the time. Sometimes you can see why a linesman got it wrong as they can be hard to judge but the Hedges one was baffling, he just cane from deep & out ran the Southend player, I don’t see how it’s possible to get that wrong

 

Hmmm, there are are dozens of alternate opinions to mine in this thread, people saying what they thought, you don't think that particular one was in entirely different language to every other?

 

I've used those words as well. Some people can't see beyond the result though.

 

To be honest, no I don’t.

And I also allow benefit of the doubt to folk - especially ones who I can see post balanced and considered posts generally.

To be fair I read after I’d seen that post that you had said yourself you might have been being mardy - and whitey had eased back too. If I’d seen that I’d not have bothered, so I apologise for adding to what had been sorted.

Anyway for what it’s worth I thought first half at times we looked pub league esque, but had one or two great chances. Potts had to score.

Second half much better but nowhere near early season standards. Hopefully Woodrow will be the catalyst to pick up the energy in the side again, we’ve become a little pedestrian and laboured. Might be controversial as he’s a great player but Mowatt slows it down a bit too much for me at times. We’re much better playing at pace.