Views from the Sieve

If you see no reduction in budget taking place then I’d imagine that’s because you can’t see any further than the end of your nose. We have no left back (again) and decided to replace two experienced loan players with nobody kids that have next to no experience. What part of that is not us looking to save money? And if you do think the Justham story is nonsense, just wait for the summer as DtD has said.

As for today, Southend are in dire straits and it’s a chance for us to get a long overdue win against them. With our squad seemingly back to full fitness (dare I say it) and theirs decimated we really should be winning this too.

Never believe we’re the home side, started off parking the bus and not looking like we’re ever going to score, tactics are crap

How to describe today’s game….. Clueless, abysmal, depressing, embarrassing,
I question what the tactics were, park the bus from the start and hope for the best? The only player to come out of this game with any credit was Rutherford and he is a right sided player who played on the left today, for a few seasons now I’ve been saying I wouldn’t renew my season ticket but it’s 100% definite for next season, today was crap crap crap and the new “manager/ head coach” has been given a two and a half year contract! F F S how depressing is that thought? Never before have I seen a daggers team capitulate like they did today and made a s4it side look like a premiere league team.
Congratulations sarfend you made us look like a Sunday league side.

That was very poor, Southend won comfortably. Never looked like scoring and constantly played long ball out of defence that was easily won by them and came back under their control. Didn’t help when we lost Dion and now wonder how long he will be out. With York and Forest Green coming up won’t be easy in getting any points from those two.

The dressing room should be embarrassed serving that up for a new manager's first game in charge, against that lot no less. They outplayed us without even getting out of first gear. Atrocious

as i left the ground I asked the police if they could arrest our players for impersonating a football team.

Dire.
Slow.
Uninspiring.
and yet again we look so slow and unfit and like we can’t put a pass together let alone a shot on goal.

Thankfully I have already made plans for some of the February rearranged fixtures, so I will be spared much more of this.

Who on earth thought giving Lewis a two and a half year contract was a good idea?

If I renew my season ticket it is only because I don’t want to lose my seat. I’m not renewing for the football, that is for sure.

The club is dying on and off the pitch. It will take a miracle to turn it around and for several people to resign their positions.

That’s our club all over, giving someone with no managerial experience a two and half year deal. Utterly ******** clueless

As bad as it gets.

Player wise, we desperately need a left back so Oscar can go back to his natural side. Our midfield is still largely hopeless. Dion injured again so that's all our creativity gone.

Tactically, we spent the entire second half trying to hit diagonals into Umerah from Phipps or Easty, who then had to battle the defenders just to lay it off to someone who promptly gave it away. There's no movement off the ball, nobody can pass the ball forwards with any intent. Southend didn't have anyone who could really go past anyone but they created a few opportunities just by moving off the ball and opening enough space for a cross. We didn't get to grips with it all game, particularly on Rendell's side who was often left exposed. Young did nothing tactically to affect it either.

Southend are quite a limited side, and in a similar boat to us in terms of league position, but looked a cut above us. Most of that was from sheer endeavour, a desire to make runs and a desire to stop the opponent that we simply didn't have. Yes we run about a lot but there's no intensity to anything we do. It's all done at jogging pace. It's so easy to play against.

Can this season just end

Hopefully all those suckers that think everything is all rosy will wake up and really notice what’s going on, clueless cheap owners is only going to end in tears. No doubt the usual will harp on and me being doom and gloom etc, club is about to fall down into the abyss big time. Enjoy.

Diggerthedog wrote: Sun Jan 26, 2025 12:08 am Hopefully all those suckers that think everything is all rosy will wake up and really notice what’s going on, clueless cheap owners is only going to end in tears. No doubt the usual will harp on and me being doom and gloom etc, club is about to fall down into the abyss big time. Enjoy.

I really can't see how anyone of sound mind can disagree you tbh. This utter garbage has been around for a long long time now. Even when we dropped out of the league we had a go in matches, now we just lay down and give up, It's dreadful to watch.
Giving an unproven man the managers job for two years should tell the fans exactly where the owners ambitions lay. It's no fault of Young's he like most of us would, has jumped at the chance to manage a club, but the owners have once again took the easy route out of a dire situation. To me they're just chancers, a lot of square pegs in round hole merchants plodding along from day to day with no real clue about the future.
If the best they can come up with in the last two years is Strevs and his understudy then god help us.
Cutting budgets and space filling might look good on a spreadsheet but in the real footballing world it's doomed to failure.
Personally I think we'll be lucky to stay up and that's not because I think things are somehow going to fall in to place, it's because I think there's actually four teams down there that are actually worse than us and that's saying something, because there's no two ways about it, we are shit on and off the pitch.

We have problems on every part of the pitch. This is probably, for whatever reason, Justhams poorest season for us. Defensively we always look like we've got a f*ck up or two and rarely look comfortable, allowing teams far too much space. In midfield we are slow and sluggish with no creativity, no bite and no desire. Attacking wise we have no outlet, no support and no ideas. Our lack of creativity and ideas going forward means that all we do is go sideways and backwards, culminating in us passing it around our defence and either hoofing it or messing it up (as per yesterday). Then, just to compound it, we constant either make completely baffling substitutions (Eastman and N'Guessan for PK and Harrock isn't going to change the game at 0-2) or no substitutions at all.

Worrying times.

In his post match interview Young said the home form had been good! This is concerning - which team has been watching!

On another planet. Our home record is 12th of 24. We've won 6 of 13. We may have scored 29 but 14 of them came in 3 games.

Do not come to many games any more, as it’s been so miserable that it doesn’t warrant the journey any more, coupled with the kids’ sporting commitments.

However, what worries me is that I have genuinely no idea what the new owners’ plan is. The club seems completely rudderless.