Southend scorefred sponsored by 'That's the Spirit'

[MTFCMusings]

Reid just isn’t what we need right now, really struggling to understand why Cloughie starts him

I haven’t seen anything in Reid to make me think he is good enough for league football however put in Nigel’s position I can understand why he has gone with him. We massively lack pace in the final third (well all over the pitch in fact) And Reid is “supposedly” the one striker with pace.

However I think he now needs to stick with a 442 formation and give Bowery and Cook the benefit down the middle until he can strengthen our options in January

This may mean we go too long at times but on our pitch that is probably the best option anyway

Bowery is our quickest striker. The other three are about the same I would say.

[Sandy Pate Best Stag]

Clough has no alternative to start these strikers as the other two aren’t fit. Gordon is a total liability at right back and I just don’t see why people think he plays well. He got away with one with the first half immediately before the penalty shout and was fortunate Sweeney rescued him again. He constantly runs into trouble or sells his passes short and just can’t get tight to his man completely missing balls in the air. Change him and get Perch back on the pitch and we will be much better for it.

The team lack any type of belief in front of goal and just pass and hope.

The pitch hasn’t helped today and I just don’t know what has gone wrong there. Time for a good lacing of sand I think especially down the west side.

I still think with a couple of good signings in the New Year, we will be ok but we do need wins quickly especially at home. We need fans banning again so we can keep our away form reasonable as we won’t be getting home fans in any time soon.

[Kenwood]

Reid just isn’t what we need right now, really struggling to understand why Cloughie starts him

I haven’t seen anything in Reid to make me think he is good enough for league football however put in Nigel’s position I can understand why he has gone with him. We massively lack pace in the final third (well all over the pitch in fact) And Reid is “supposedly” the one striker with pace.

However I think he now needs to stick with a 442 formation and give Bowery and Cook the benefit down the middle until he can strengthen our options in January

This may mean we go too long at times but on our pitch that is probably the best option anyway

Bowery is our quickest striker. The other three are about the same I would say.

He is and probably our best certainly based on performances this season

However when quite a few made reference to our lack of pace in the forward line at the start of the season, quite a few commented that Reid was fast?

He should be more mobile than Cook but has shown nothing

Time to give Bowery the chance back down the middle, he will certainly miss chances but will at least get them, something Reid hasn’t done

[Dave Wayne]

Supported this club for 40 years. Can't remember not winning a home game before Christmas but glad to salvage a point. Much better second half with Cook on

I can remember when we didn’t even score a league goal at home until New Year’s Eve. That’s what you call bad.

I used to get this one thrown at me by an ex-colleague whenever I was moaning about performances. 1971/72 season I think ?

[wayno cordiniho]

Least cloughys stopped us getting spanked by Barrowesque teams but we’re desperate for some quality. Can only get so much out of a limited quality team

You mean the Barrow who won 3 - 0 today.

Against us... no wonder our lads looked pedestrian

[Tippy Tappy Football]

Nigel Clough has come in and steadied the ship and took us to the 3rd Rd of the FA Cup. We look a lot more organised as a team and our defence has looked tighter than under GC since we moved to a back four. We have only lost 1-0 in the two league games we have lost and we deserved a point against Harrogate.

Nigel Clough's preferred attacking strategy is to get the ball wide and get crosses into the box. This means that the full backs, Kellan Gordon and Mal Benning are important players for us along with Harry Charsley and Stephen McLoughlin. Gordon and Benning help us get up the pitch and are key attacking players. Kellan Gordon and Harry Charsley must have put in around 8 crosses each today but I think the only decent cross was Harry Charsley's cross to Jordan Bowery at the far post in the 1st half. They did win 4 of our 5 corners but our set pieces were poor again today. There were even a couple of times in the 2nd half when we sent the centre halfs up and then did not put the ball in the box. We need to start scoring from set pieces if we are going to start grinding out wins in close games.

We did not play well in the first half but Ryan Sweeney, Jordan Bowery and Mal Benning could have done better for the goal. James Olayinka (20) (on loan from Arsenal) skipped past Sweeney and Bowery. I do not know who Mal Benning was marking at the throw in and why he was further up the pitch than Bowery when Southend scored. It was a great strike by Olayinka though. Terrell Egbri (19) was also a threat out wide for Southend. He played well away at Carlisle when I watched them earlier in the season. Harry Charsley also had a good chance to equalise after Mark Oxley had saved George Lapslie's shot.

We played a lot better in the 2nd half and we created enough chances to win the game. Bowery's header was deflected on to the bar, Lapslie should have scored after good work by Cook and Bowery, Ollie Clarke shot wide and Harry Charsley got in the way of Mal Benning's shot. We had 61% possession which is the most possession we've had since we drew 0-0 at home against Stevenage. Jordan Bowery deserved his goal and it was a shame we could not grab a winner. It was interesting to note that our our best chance to score (Lapslie) and Jordan Bowery's goal both came from long balls down the pitch from Sweeney and Stech. The most important thing though was not to get beat and I would have taken a point at half time. Preventing a three point swing to Southend could be crucial at the end of the season.

I liked Corey O'Keeffe's little cameo role and especially his three long throws. We need someone with a long throw. It is a useful weapon to have and the likes of Newport, Cheltenham and Carlisle have used it well through Ben Tozer, Micky Demetriou and Josh Kayode.

I'm sure Nigel Clough will improve the squad in the January transfer window and I think he will get further improvements from existing players. He clearly likes having a small tight squad and not making too many changes. He's also giving the existing players a fair chance to show what they can do.

Despite the fact that our crossing could have been better, I thought our best players today were Kellan Gordon (89 touches), Mal Benning (91 touches) and Jordan Bowery; and I thought Ollie Clarke (59 touches) and Harry Charsley (59 touches) also played well. Harry Charsley's best touch was his little lay off to Jordan Bowery from Marek Stech's kick for the goal. I'd probably give MOM to Jordan Bowery for his goal.

[Bradders]

I’d keep Sweeney Clarke and Lapslie, the rest I wouldn’t miss if they moved on, we are short of pace up front.Cook doesn’t look interested even though he is an upgrade on Reid, and despite his goal I can’t take to Bowery.
3rd bottom will be an achievement with this shower of she height

Bit harsh on Gordon, and Bowery is certainly one of our better players. There are a few that I'd retain to make up the squad, and I think that Rawson is a decent partner for Sweeney. So I'd be looking at getting rid of a few fringe players and dropping some of the regulars to the bench. But January isn't the time for big changes.

The fact you think Bowery is one of our better players reinforces my opinion that we are basically she height, Gordon has been played out of position and has been awful for weeks, probably less so today, but the fact we talking about players being less bad says it all

I don't think that he's been awful. He gets past defenders and puts decent crosses in, both on a regular basis.
Bowery isn't amazing, but he can hold the ball up, can attack with power and aggression, and opens up defences. Perhaps he can even score. He seems more useful than Danny Rose, who was mostly played to win free kicks that we almost always wasted.
We won't be making wholesale changes in January anyway, and I doubt that Bowery and Gordon will be shipped out.

[oldweststander]

I’d keep Sweeney Clarke and Lapslie, the rest I wouldn’t miss if they moved on, we are short of pace up front.Cook doesn’t look interested even though he is an upgrade on Reid, and despite his goal I can’t take to Bowery.
3rd bottom will be an achievement with this shower of she height

Bit harsh on Gordon, and Bowery is certainly one of our better players. There are a few that I'd retain to make up the squad, and I think that Rawson is a decent partner for Sweeney. So I'd be looking at getting rid of a few fringe players and dropping some of the regulars to the bench. But January isn't the time for big changes.

The fact you think Bowery is one of our better players reinforces my opinion that we are basically she height, Gordon has been played out of position and has been awful for weeks, probably less so today, but the fact we talking about players being less bad says it all

I don't think that he's been awful. He gets past defenders and puts decent crosses in, both on a regular basis.
Bowery isn't amazing, but he can hold the ball up, can attack with power and aggression, and opens up defences. Perhaps he can even score. He seems more useful than Danny Rose, who was mostly played to win free kicks that we almost always wasted.
We won't be making wholesale changes in January anyway, and I doubt that Bowery and Gordon will be shipped out.

I agree but I do get the feeling that, for whatever reason, Cook is still not happy and that he will probably leave in January, as he did last season.

[Conker]

I don’t think Clough can do much more than he has done, which is make us very hard to beat.

[bellwhiff]

I’d keep Sweeney Clarke and Lapslie, the rest I wouldn’t miss if they moved on, we are short of pace up front.Cook doesn’t look interested even though he is an upgrade on Reid, and despite his goal I can’t take to Bowery.
3rd bottom will be an achievement with this shower of she height

Bit harsh on Gordon, and Bowery is certainly one of our better players. There are a few that I'd retain to make up the squad, and I think that Rawson is a decent partner for Sweeney. So I'd be looking at getting rid of a few fringe players and dropping some of the regulars to the bench. But January isn't the time for big changes.

The fact you think Bowery is one of our better players reinforces my opinion that we are basically she height, Gordon has been played out of position and has been awful for weeks, probably less so today, but the fact we talking about players being less bad says it all

I don't think that he's been awful. He gets past defenders and puts decent crosses in, both on a regular basis.
Bowery isn't amazing, but he can hold the ball up, can attack with power and aggression, and opens up defences. Perhaps he can even score. He seems more useful than Danny Rose, who was mostly played to win free kicks that we almost always wasted.
We won't be making wholesale changes in January anyway, and I doubt that Bowery and Gordon will be shipped out.

I agree but I do get the feeling that, for whatever reason, Cook is still not happy and that he will probably leave in January, as he did last season.

I doubt very strongly that that’s going to happen unless we sign Harry Kane

[Jimstag]

For me we have to closer to what we were playing under Cooper, he had Maynard playing behind a front two and was more creative than anyone else we’ve seen.

He’s not fit at the moment so I’d go 442. We have two wingers in Mac and Gorden, play these and see if we can supply the strikers. O’Keefe at right back for me.

Other than that Clough has limited options, I’ve said before Coughlan got rid of all the flair for workhorses. They make us hard to beat but if we’re not creating and scoring many we end up drawing way too many.

[Tippy Tappy Football]

I agree but I do get the feeling that, for whatever reason, Cook is still not happy and that he will probably leave in January, as he did last season.

Have you seen Andy Cook's reaction when Jordan Bowery equalised yesterday. He did not look unhappy with his fists clenched and screaming. He looked totally committed to the Stags cause. Great photo by Chris Holloway.

[Spiritater]

Probably unable to believe Jordan'd bagged for once.

[gazza1988]

I think (ie my opinion on what could be the reason) Cook didn't get on with Coughlan. That's why he went away and with covid happening and financial restrictions he couldn't get the move away without taking a financial hit. He already had his contract here (he was in the "already under contract" section of the retained list) and decided to stay and fight for his place in the side. He was largely used on the bench for GC this season.

So I think Cook is happy to be here he just, for whatever reason, wasn't happy with GC.

Again, I stress this is me connecting dots based on what we know and can observe. I'm not claiming I have insider info or anything.

[bear 73]

Southend did what was expected and made life difficult for us, and their goal added another dimension to their play, The state of the pitch played a part in the game. We got away i thought with the penalty appeal, and Clough learnt a lot about his players. Fans react to events on the field a gloom turned to hope when we equalised, The club and team are at a crossroads, Clough will stand by the club and fans in good times or bad , it is in his makeup, and we are in a bad situation, And our goal is league 2 safety whilst waiting for pre season
and 2021/22. We kept Southend 4pts behind us and gained a point on 10 other teams, whilst Perch Maynard Cook regain full fitness to help in our struggle.
Bringing players on is easy for fans,, but can effect games and Managers carry the can, O keefe brought some good long throws into the mix, but could have lost us the match in the final minutes but got away with giving the ball away, and phew did not commit a foul on the player giving away a penalty, such fine margins.

[Tippy Tappy Football]

O keefe brought some good long throws into the mix, but could have lost us the match in the final minutes but got away with giving the ball away, and phew did not commit a foul on the player giving away a penalty, such fine margins.

That's a good point Bear. It was a bad mistake by O'Keeffe to lose the ball and my heart was in my mouth having seen Stags players bring players down in that situation or Reuben Reid chuck himself on the floor.

[wardy12345]

I’m starting to think that there’s only 5 or 6 players good enough to be in the first team and maybe 1 or 2 more for bench.

January is a massive month for the stags and will probably decide if we stay up or not.

[Tippy Tappy Football]

If we can add 1 or 2 quality players then that can make a massive difference in both boxes. Fine margins etc

[victor A block]

Knowles scores for County

Only against the mighty morpeth thou.. Dont think hes the answer to our problems atm

I agree. I didn't think Knowles was ready last season. However Reid makes him look like Neymar.
I think eyebrows are going to be raised if he starts again against Scunny. I really don't see what he offers.
A better threat appears to be Cook and Bowery getting in the box and O'Keefe lobbing in the long throws.
Not pretty but he has to work with what he has got.
I'd also put Perch in at CH with Sweeney, but the manager so far seems to change little, so not expecting it.

[MutinyOnTheCounty]

It's definitely a head scratcher as to why Cook doesn't start as often.

I can only imagine its because Cloughie wants Bowery in the line up & feels that Reid is the better counterpart to him. Maybe he prefers Reid initially to wear out the opposition & bring on Cook as a battering ram once legs start to tire?

[west country stag]

JR wants to look at paying some contracts up early , so painful to watch at times

[Gazmoose82]

JR wants to look at paying some contracts up early , so painful to watch at times

Easier said than done thou mate... If your sitting on a nice 2yr 2.5k a week contract at a low standard lg2 club like mansfield not a chance in hell your gonna give it up in these uncertain times.
Only way some of these duds will get shifted is if someone else comes in for them... Which is highly unlikely!

[MTFCMusings]

Pass map from Southend game for anyone interested. Surprisingly pretty good.