Minority Report - Southend United

The game was over after 25 minutes. After that, they were all just playing out time.

The first goal came about because the centre of our defence was just too weak. Marc Roberts did catch a hand in the face, but there is no way that you should stop playing before the whistle, and there is even less excuse for Mawson’s lack of intervention. Was he daydreaming?

During that first 25 minutes, Southend could and perhaps should have been 4-0 up and planning for their next game. It put me in mind of just how poor we were in the first half of the season. We were soft at the back and poor in midfield. But why had we gone back in time three months, was it our fault or was it to do with how Southend approached the game.

My guess is that it was a little of both. The reason that outstanding teams do not win every week is that they become lazy and complacent. They no longer believe that work is the cornerstone of performance. Older heads are needed when this happens. They shake the team up and they let it be known who is not up to ‘scratch’. We have no-one to do that, no-one with the force of character to pick the team up and carry them on to a better performance. That is a problem in teams with too many kids.

But there was more to it than that. Phil Brown has done a job on us, and I was forced to admire the way that he dismantled our castle. The first weakness that he identified was at full back. Normally this is our strength, but without both Bree and White, our attacking options from full back are very limited. Neither replacement at full back is a disaster defensively, but when both first choices are missing, our attacking options, particularly at home, are limited.

So Brown had identified a weakness, but he used this weakness to concentrate his forces against our strength. He narrowed his midfield four in order to nullify Hourihane and Brownhill. They were outnumbered and the space they usually find was limited as a result. The final part of the equation was that our central defenders dropped too deep, there was space between the lines for their midfield 4 to play in. In that opening 25 minutes, we were outworked, out run and out fought. Brown knew that they could not keep it up for 90 minutes, but he hoped that they would be able to hang on to a lead.

Much of our success since Christmas has come from the domination we have out wide. But with Isgrove ill, Chapman was a disappointment. Those who read my piece on Hammill yesterday would have noted my general frustration with his play. Today was the perfect illustration of the reasons for that frustration. A total contribution of one decent cross and one shot straight at the keeper does not put him in the Ryan Giggs/George Best class. OK, he received little help from full back, but even his most one-eyed fan must surely agree that this was just not good enough.

After the run that we have been on, there is no way that we should throw away all that good work by resorting to panic. We are better set up to play teams on the break, and there will be lots of chances to do that in our next game. The above only becomes an issue when we fall behind in home games.

 

Can't agree with your comments about our full backs on so many levels. That said you are spot on about how Southend narrowed their midfield which allowed them to take control and therefore nullify our attacking wingers. I also agree with most of your comments about Hammill. However your suggestion that he received little support from the full back is surprising given the fact that the full back never gets the ball back from Hammill. In fact I would go further and suggest Hammill should start loving his team mates as much as he does himself; he should be in a budgie cage so he can admire himself in the mirror!

One thing you didn't mentioned was our continued reliance today on the long ball to the front two which was dealt with every time by Southend's centre halves who both had an excellent game.

 

As the game wore on and they got more desperate they missed out midfield. This is standard for a team that has run out of ideas and is why I concentrated on the first 25 minutes, when the game still had shape.

 

Fair point

 

Well thought out and written RR, but I doubt Phil Brown will analyse it to the degree you suggest, and if he did neither could he have known Isgrove would be injured or that we would give a second run out to the Everton lad or perhaps that White would be still out..nothing about our form recently has pointed to full backs being particularly weak..or that Winnall would be on the bench, or that Scowen wouldn't come back in. Without knowing (admittedly)..I would imagine that is his standard plan..they appear to have a big strong central midfield where Payne has a free role. Is it guesswork to say they deliberately narrowed it...perhaps it's their standard plan.They hit countless balls to Barnett which appeared to be Plan A...that didn't work but a bit of good football did...and as you say could have scored 2 more till we stepped it up a bit. After that it was 10 sometimes all 11 behind the ball with some pretty cynical defending to hang on. If Hourihane had scored his pen we could well have seen a different game .

To qualify that...I just noticed your 2nd post...apologies.

 

Agree with all of this, RR. I've defended Hammill when you've made those points about him before because I think he worries teams even when his end product is mixed. But I totally agree that Phil Brown appeared to have done his homework today and had two, sometimes three men closing Hammill down when he got on the ball. Today was a day for Scowen, who would have made it more of a contest in midfield. As it was, with two wingers and Hourihane seemingly out of sorts we were totally outfought in the middle. I think Winnall's experience and battling spirit would have been useful as well.

As an aside, it's my firm opinion that a professional footballer - even at League One level - ought to be able to hit the side of the netting (a target of three feet plus?) with a penalty nineteen times out of twenty. They can always be saved, but to totally miss an eight-yard target after a week of training is amateurish.

 

I agree with all of that except the bit on Hammill. I saw several good crosses yesterday delivered to dangerous areas.

 

Because of the reaction to my previous post regarding Adam Hammill, I took particular note of his play yesterday.

The one cross that I referred to was the one when he got around the full back, got to the goal-line and crossed with his left foot to the far post, where Watkins headed wide. The rest were delivered with his right foot from in front of the full back. They were either too short, too long or badly directed.

Look, I do not want a row. We all have our own opinions on players, and they are just that, opinions. I am quite open in my opinion of Hammill. He can be a threat, but he can also be a waste of space, and yesterday he was the later. He is definitely more of a threat when he plays with Aidy White, because White is a threat, and he takes some of the attention away from Hammill. On top of everything else, our left side was populated by two natural right footers and that means that most of our crosses are shaped towards their keeper and not away from him and towards our forwards. The timing of the forays into the box is not helped when the crosser on the left side has to have an extra touch in order to get it into the right position to cross.

I do not hate Adam Hammill and as I said at the time, he would always be in my team. However, I see his weaknesses and I am not convinced that he can play in the Championship any more.

 

I hadn't realised that their keeper got himself an assist yesterday...bit of a joke goal to give away.