The Southend autopsy

Sorry Jon, can't agree there. You look at Wigan and Blackburn last year who had number 10s in Dack and Powell who excelled in this division. Payne can be that player for us.

Unfortunately, unlike Blackburn and Wigan, we don't have a set style of play and formation. Instead of giving Payne the ball at his feet in dangerous areas, we're lumping the ball up to Doyle and hoping payne will pick up second balls.

I get why you may think this but it isn't his fault we haven't seen the best of him.

 

Which Bradford City fan would want the coach/manager to fail, I'm sure come Tuesday evening 14,000 City fans will be giving the 11 players selected to start all the vocal support they can, the rest is up to the players and coach to get a result.
I think the lad has been put in an embarrassing position Edin offering him the head coaches job, just what could he say, sorry boss I've still to prove my self at U18 level, of course he would be silly not to take the job, we should never have been in that situation to have someone who hasn't had previous coaching/managerial experience taking over after the way we saw the second half of last season capitulate.
Edin told us he was going to take his time and get the right candidate in, according to both Edin and the T&A there were several high quality applicants but none meet the criteria Edin wanted, I personally find that difficult to believe.

 

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/sport/sportbcfc/

 

When Parker is saying it's bad it must have been really bad. A couple of 4/10s and a few 5s, without the likes of Jones and Reeves to change things around i'm not sure what he can do to change the line up around. That central midfield is very worrying, Akpan and Wright look very slow and don't help Payne and the forwards at all. A goal shy attack and a dodgy defence, at least the keeper looks decent.

 

Damn you Ron, damn you to hell.

 

That defence don't look any stronger to me, looks to be all over the place. To be fair to them until Collins learns how to manage an adult side properly then they are going rely on themselves to get through games. I guarantee this group of players would look different straight away under an experienced coach, its like developing a new formula one car, then looking for an experienced driver but then deciding to give the ride to one of the tyre changers then wonder why the car keeps going off the track.

 

Collins couldn't learn how to manage the u18s. They were 3rd bottom under his management last year.

This year, without him, admittedly only early days, but they are 3rd and will go top if they win the game in hand.

 

Yeah, the appointment of Collins is now what everyone is questioning, although any with half a brain has been questioning it since it was made. No experience of first team football management, not even sat on the bench in any capacity. Its not like he has done the hard yards with a spell as an assistant or anything like that. He hasn't so much been pushed in the deep end, more like pushed off the end of a cliff into the atlantic. At least his assistant has some experience......

 

Just seen SP report in the T&A, to be fair he doesn't hold back and credit to him for reporting what the fans saw, telling it as it is and for once not what Edin would like him to write

 

Who taken on the U18 coaching job ?.

 

Interesting ............ when Payne was at Southend he was seen as a very good player ....... when the rest of the team is on form and balanced and we were getting at the opponents that is. But in some games he was a "luxury" player - not able to get the ball and not able to influence the game - often then trying too hard with the inevitable consequence that the ball is lost and the pressure comes back on. Defending and tracking back are not what you want Payne to be doing on the pitch as it is a waste of his skills ............ but that means there is more to be done by the remainder of the team.

All in all, there were more views on how and when to play Jack Payne than there are ice-cream flavours. If Collins can sort out how and what Payne is supposed to be doing that would be a good step forward.

Otherwise I'm sorry to see your club in such apparent disarray so early in the season.

And one last thing ............ Gillingham and Southend (both from the same division) decided that Josh Wright wasn't what they needed. That doesn't mean that he can't be a good player for Bradford but it would take a talented man-manager and tactician to get results from him that 2 competing clubs haven't managed so far.

 

As a Southend fan what is your view on Josh Wright? What does he do well and not so well in your opinion?

 

Yet we made the see you next Tuesday captain.

 

See if you can find one of the mistakes that MC is making to managing the players in this sentence taken from the T&A from the captain

"He said: “I can assure the fans they are going to see a reaction.
They spent a lot of hard-earned money to go down to Southend and deserved more. We let them down as well as Micky and his staff."

 

I guess you are referring to the players calling the coach 'Micky'

 

To be fair to Wright, his time at Southend was disjointed and he came into a poor performing team due to injuries and (frankly) Phil Brown being a bit daft.

When Wright was first at the club he was asked to play wide midfield as an anchor in front of the defence - not his natural role it would seem but we were very short of players and Phil Brown was being Phil Brown. The team as a whole were not performing well and so it is hardly unsurprising that Wright's performance were mediocre - in fact we had let a similar player go during the summer and many wondered if we had simply replaced one average midfielder with another.

Later Wright did get a chance in central midfield and sadly his performances were not much better and then I think he was injured. Towards the end of the season he had opportunities to impress Chris Powell and stake a claim but it never happened - and this was now in a team that was playing well and scoring well (as you saw when we came to Valley Parade and won 2-0 late on in the season).

What does he do well? He seemed to be putting in the effort. Not so well? Creativity and attacking - which is strange since he has scored against Southend when playing for Gillingham!

 

So basically:

What he does well = decent bit of effort
What he doesn't do well = anything with a football.

Superb.

 

We've downgraded from Nicky law. Sad

 

Certain makes you reflect on Shay McCarten and the reason why he didn't perform. Similar player, similar role.

 

In case the previous four pages left you in some kind of confusion....

IT WAS BAD