"Well after my positivity on Saturday i'm afraid I'm going to have go all Jekyll & Hyde and turn it round into a negative. I'm sorry, but this was one of the worst home displays I have seen in a long time. There are a number of recent contenders, particularly last season, but this one took the biscuit for all round ineptitude.
Last year I declared the Accrington FA Cup replay as one of the worst games I had ever witnessed at Underhill. That one was down to sheer lack of desire. However this debacle was down to purest and simplest of inability to put two passes together and look like getting any sort of stronghold in the game. I don't understand where a showing this bad came from, and Southend, who were a decent side, needed only to play the ball around us with minimal fuss to get their win. They even looked comfortable with ten men on the field after their centre back was sent off for a little scuffle.
It's uncertain where to start with individuals, but we can pick out those who did have a good night's work. Jake Cole again didn't put much of a foot wrong but was not helped by some catastrophic defending. Grant Basey was the only defender to really come out of the game with credit, perhaps harsh on Parkes, but Basey again looked assured and strong at the back. More on Clovis Kamdjo and Joe Devera later.
The key positive for me though was the second half performance of Mauro Vilhete. The seventeen year old product of the youth academy was lively, quick and dangerous, and he got himself on the scoresheet with just over ten minutes remaining, despite the Press Association trying to award the goal to the similarly diminutive Mark Marshall. Vilhete showed more attacking prowess than anybody else in a Barnet shirt. Should we be worried that it takes a youth player to get us back into a game, or should we be positive that The Hive can throw out players of this potential so quickly? Given a year or so of bulking up and good exposure to the first team, Mauro is going to be an asset. Hopefully the first of many from our youth system.
But that I'm afraid is where the positives stop. We were completely overrun by our visitors who bought a decent crowd who backed their team well, being pretty noisy at times. They cut through us with minimal effort, but like last week at Wycombe it's not really possible to judge them considering the lame opposition that they had to face.
We were weak all over the pitch. We didn't look at all dangerous going forward until Vilhete came on and at the back we were so so weak. Poor Clovis Kamdjo, I felt sorry for him. It's clear he is a confidence player and this showing will do him no good. It was a night where everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong. Clearly at fault for the second, and very much involved in the first, he had an absolute nightmare. I do hope he can put that into the back of his mind as I do like the lad. Joe Devera also will have had better nights and not many worse. His passing was woeful and defensively he struggled, a lot. It was the performance in key areas such as this which lost us this game.
Even after getting a goal back having been 2-0 down, we had a bit of a chance. Out of nowhere, I might add, it was our first meaningful effort on goal. Southend could have easily been out of sight by half time, having taken the lead a quarter of an hour in. They took advantage of slack marking, poor organisation and inability to keep the ball to completely dominate us. They hit the post from a beautifully struck free kick and we went in at half time hanging on by a thread.
The red card did not change things and they doubled their lead after Kamdjo's howler soon after. It killed the game. The third goal was from a counter attack and former Barnet man Louie Soares finished over Jake Cole via a sizeable deflection. That was certainly the end of it as a contest, as if that hadn't been confirmed already. Southend's fans hollered that they will be going to Wembley and good luck to them. Such a headline adorned our official website in the hours leading up to kick off but once again we left feeling a little let down. Maybe the difference between this and Saturday was that we came up against half decent opposition. This bodes well, Bradford are even worse than us and can't buy a win at the moment. Maybe they'll let us put a pass together.
For now though, let's wallow in a bit of pity, as the reality of the Johnstone's Paint dream smacks us square in the face for another year. Horrendous."
|