Travelling down to Southend yesterday I was full of optimism, not optimism that we would smash League 1 or the Rovers twitter account should “announce promotion” as tongue in cheek demanded by some Twitterati. My optimism was based on a manager who knew the league, had relatively good players in the team with League 1 experience and a team packed full of players who had dropped down from the Championship last season – or maybe, just maybe despite a downward curve since the day Venkys walked through the door back in December 2010 I was sucked in by the ‘new season’ hype.
At approximately 2pm when the team was announced I was in a grotty, flea pit of a pub (The Plough for anybody else who had the misfortune of having a pre-match pint in there) and was trying to work out what formation Mowbray was going to have us line up with – 442, 4231, 433 and by the time we reached the antiquated away end at Roots Hall complete with 80s style toilets, seats bolted onto terracing and the obligatory pillar I still wasn’t entirety sure.
By the time you read this blog, there will have been numerous match reports, opinion and analysis ranging from how good Southend were to how utterly poor Rovers were, however the one thing that did strike me was the gusto in which the Southend players and supporters alike celebrated a victory against a team that virtually evey media outlet had down for promotion. Unfortunately for everybody at Southend United, the victory will no doubt have been soured by the death of a supporter who had taken ill in the ground – our condolences to his friends and family.
The biggest worry for me yesterday was the lack of attacking threat, clear goal scoring opportunities and as one fan said behind me (with a few expletives thrown in for good measure and entirely understandable given the audible frustration of the fans at full-time) Southend defended as a team, attcked as a team and played as a team. We in general didn’t.
I don’t particularly like singling out players, however during the three pre-season games I saw in addition to yesterday, I’ve yet to see what Whittingham and Samuel bring to the team and given the players that Mowbray inherited and brought in, I can’t see this 4-3-3 formation working either at home or away. In my humble opinion, Raya was MOTM for me and without a couple of very good saves the score line wouldn’t have been an opening day defeat but actually quite embarrassing.
Winning yesterday wouldn’t have confirmed promotion, as defeat doesn’t condemn us to another season in League 1 or heaven forbid worse, but what it does do is burst the pre-season bubble of confidence/enthusiasm and extends the run without winning on the opening day of the season which stretches back to 2010 – even that was a lucky goal against Everton in their salmon pink shirts if my memory serves me correctly. After yesterday it was more a case of ‘here we go again’ and talking to fans on the coach and M6 services coming home, the general consensus seemed to range from here we were poor to absolute **** which seemed a fair enough analysis to me. I saw a few comments which said the defeat was a wake up call and reality check for the supporters, I’m far more bothered about it being a wake up call and reality check for the players, manager and coaching staff alike.
As I said at the beginning, welcome to League 1!
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