New Year Blues

Fixture: Oxford United 0 Southend United 2
Date: 1/1/11

Following the win against Macclesfield, we arrived at the Stadium hopeful that we could record our fourth win on the bounce. Instead we went down with hardly a whimper in what turned out to be an afternoon full of frustration. There was one change to the starting line-up with Purkiss coming in for Batt who was relegated to the bench. Also on the bench, after finally serving a one-match ban, was Craddock who replaced Midson. So the team was: Clarke, Kinniburgh, Worley, Purkiss, Futcher, Heslop, Clist, Payne, Constable, Potter MacLean. Subs: Eastwood, Batt, Tonkin, Wright, Hall, Green, Craddock.

Oxford started well enough but there was an early warning after a wayward back-pass put Sturrock in on goal but Clarke was alert to the danger and did just enough to put the striker off. The U's should have taken the lead on 12 minutes after a great pass across the field by Payne picked out Purkiss on the right touchline. The full-back then crossed the ball at pace into the centre of six yard box to Constable, but his header went inches wide of the left-hand post. It was a golden chance, one that we were made to pay for five minutes later. A Southend attack was broken down and resulted in a corner to them. From the flag-kick, the ball was swung into the box, picking out their tall centre half who headed it back into the heart of the box. One of our players swung at the ball to clear it but it dropped invitingly to Barry Corr who fired the ball through a crowd of players and into the net to give the Shriimpers the lead.

Instead of playing to our strengths and passing the ball around, it seemed that every move forward was a launched ball towards the front two men. Southend coped easily with this and seemed to just be content to soak up what little pressure we applied then break forward with slick passing. With tempers fraying, Payne on a yellow card and clearly losing his head, Wilder hauled the midfielder off just before half time, replacing him with Asa Hall. Unfortunately Hall's first contribution to the game was to give the ball away sloppily to Southend's Graham Coughlan. He in turn passed the ball out to right-back Sean Clohessy on the right touch-line. Putting over a speculative cross, the ball drifted over the top of Clarke, who had anticipated a cross to the centre of the penalty area and, clipping the post, dropped into the top left-hand corner of the net! Going in one down at the break would have been bad enough but now we had given ourselves a mountain to climb.

The start of the second half saw Jake Wright coming on for Ben Futcher in the centre of defence but the pattern of the play remained the same with Southend going close to extend the lead early on in the half when Sturrock blazed a shot over the bar from inside the area. Ten minutes into the second half Oxford finally had a shot on goal by Potter go wide of the post - quite possibly the first real effort since Constable's miss early in the first half! Constable himself then went on a mazy little run as he beat two or three men but his shot from just inside the area just went past the far post.

The final substitution was made on 61 minutes when Tom Craddock came on for Steve Kinniburgh. He joined the front two of Constable and MacLean in a last desperate effort to get something out of the game. Leaving us lighter at the back it meant that Southend were happy to let us have the ball just inside their half but looked to counter attack at every opportunity and Wright made a couple of very crucial last ditch challenges to prevent the Shrimpers from extending the lead. With 10 minutes to go MacLean was really unlucky to see his header come back off the post - our only attempt on target in the entire game!

With the clock ticking down Southend didn't need to bother about any time-wasting tactics because Oxford just never troubled their defence. The final whistle came as more of a relief to us than the visiting supporters and, cold and abject, we thankfully trudged out of the Stadium to go home. You could excuse the Macclesfield performance because of the weather delays, and the 3 points helped to temper the disappointing display. After getting that game under their belts you'd have expected a lot better performance against Southend but it was actually worse. At times the players played like 11 strangers rather than team mates - they looked lacklustre and completely clueless as to what they were supposed to be doing. With the next fixture away at Torquay only two days after this one we can only hope that the players feel ashamed enough of their performances to play out of their skins!