Just Back

Taylor head and shoulders above the rest. Clifton, Waterfall and Pearson decent. Sousa still an enigma. A win is a win.

A stop the rot performance but we were very disjointed after a bright start. Cool finish from Taylor and we just look an all round better team with him leading the line. He was the best player on the pitch by a distance. His intelligence, properly timed and weighted lay offs, coupled with him being a good finisher given the opportunities has made him a big miss of late.

McAtee came on to give the muted crowd a bit of a lift and we will need him and Taylor in this run of tough games we are about to embark on.

We looked nervy and edgy tonight and lost possession countless times. We had a few good situations but never made the most of them to get that second goal which would have made the players and fans a little more calm.

Having said that, Southend very rarely troubled our back line and you can see why they have only scored 11 goals all season.

Not much tonight to get you out of your seat, but three points and joint top, at least for tonight.

Back 4 solid although crookes looked to be caught for pace a couple of times near the end.

Clifton worked hard but not his best night, thought coke was poor. Hunt spread the play well and kept us ticking over especially in the last 15 of the first half.

Thought fox looked completely out of place trying to link up with Taylor and his first touch was poor but worked hard and clearly out of position.

Sousa looked so good and with a slightly better final ball we could have been out of sight, but if he could do that on a regular basis he wouldn’t be at our level.

Taylor by far MOM for me. Held the ball up superbly and brought others into the game.

Great to see JM back and don’t forget this was a side low on confidence after losing 4 on the trot, so I would take a scruffy 1-0 against anyone, every day of the week thank you very much.

Great to be able to look forward to the rest of the weekend with 3 points already under the belt. Enjoy your beer, wine, g&t or orange juice tonight and tomorrow, we all deserve it after the last few weeks.

UTFM

Scrappy 1-0 win will do for me! As others have said, Taylor was superb up top with little natural support around him. I say natural because Ben Fox is definitely not a number 10. Great to see Pearson back too, solid as ever at the back.

Oh and I had a prawn stuffed scotch quail egg! At a football match! Who knew that was a thing?!

Not great by any stretch but take it & move on to tuesday , positive for me both centre backs completly dominant & taylor's hold up & link play excellant , sousa good till he reaches 18 yard box then enough said

Quoted from jimgtfc

Scrappy 1-0 win will do for me! As others have said, Taylor was superb up top with little natural support around him. I say natural because Ben Fox is definitely not a number 10. Great to see Pearson back too, solid as ever at the back.

Oh and I had a prawn stuffed scotch quail egg! At a football match! Who knew that was a thing?!

Bloody prawn stuffed scotch quail egg brigade, always leaving 5 minutes early to get there prawn stuff scotch quail eggs!

Not many complaints from me tonight.

Good points: Taylor was excellent. Sousa had their right back with twisted blood at times running at him. Defence looked very competent against an albeit limited Southend (is that the first time they’ve started together?). The rot is stopped and McAtee is back.

Bad points: Sousa’s final ball - one shot at the Pontoon seemed to defy the laws of physics. After a really bright start we failed to build on the momentum and let the rest of the first half drift away.

Hopefully we can start another run with this result and get some momentum going into Christmas. Two big games in the next week or so which are both difficult in their own way.

I don't think there is anything to be negative about tonight. The only thing that mattered was the win to stop the rot. Mission accomplished.

I thought we were OK in general and enjoyed the game more than some apparently did. Southend were odd opposition. More pacy players than us, a pretty mobile midfield with one or two tricky players who managed some nice first-time passing, but they just didn't really create anything more than one or two scrambles. No real clear-cut chances I can remember. It probably didn't help that their No. 9 was so busy trying to referee the game whilst standing offside and attempting to foul Waterfall or Pearson every time they went up for a header!

We, on the other hand, gave the ball away cheaply much too often, but still had enough good breaks to have scored one or two more goals had the final pass, ball or shot been better. Sousa really needs to start getting somewhere with his final ball or shot because he was unplayable in spells, but nothing ever came from it.

Pleased to see Pearson slot in and perform well, a bit disappointed by Hunt once again but agree that Taylor was just fantastic. Won 90% of the balls into him before playing the ball to the feet of teammates over and over again. We need to start taking advantage of that sort of service better.

Midfield needs sorting. Coke and Hunt doesn’t work, Fox needs to be back in there and not played out of position.