Post Script
OK, so away at Championship side Peterborough perhaps isn’t where you want your season to start if you’re a League Two side – it’s a confidence thing, your last game before the footie proper starts – but it does look as though Southend had a bit of a ‘mare tonight ………
No 38 year-old ex Liverpool keeper (not that he ever played for them)
Tony Warner in goal , nor ex Hibs keeper
Mark Brown (displaced as No 1 at Easter Road by ex Colchester keeper
Ben Williams); instead, Bury loanee keeper
Cameron Belford (23) returned to Roots Hall just 6 weeks after Boss
Paul Sturrock denied any interest in trying to re-sign him …………
He had 3 months there last season on loan, keeping 9 clean sheets out of 15 games, but tonight he picked the ball out of the net four times …………
At least he wasn’t the GK in their last friendly, which they lost to a Spurs XI by 6-0!
Most of their strike force of last season has gone –
Bilel Mohsni (13 goals) and
Liam Dickinson (12) have left, as has midfielder
Anthony Grant (to Stevenage);
Grant got 8 in their first season in League 2, but just the one last season. That said, it may be that
Paul Sturrock’s main discipline problems are behind him as well, because their three worst offenders last season were the self-same
Anthony Paul Shaun Andrew Daube Grant (13 yellow/1 red),
Bilel Mohsni (10 yellow/2 red) and
Liam Dickinson – who signed for Plymouth last season, you’ll recall, but left within a few days – with 8 yellow/1 red.
You might well wonder where Southend’s goals are coming from this time round; so, I suspect, might the faithful of Roots Hall; they left
Eastwood on the bench tonight (although he replaced former Millwall striker
Neil Harris on 40 mins), and the nearest they came to scoring was a
Kane Ferdinand header against the bar. And they only put six subs on the bench (if BBC Sports News is correct ...)
Worrying times ………………..