[ 25 Feb 17 ] GILLS v Southend Utd Match Thread

[Garawa]

- The Gills are unbeaten in 6 games (4 wins) against Southend. The last 2 were both 3-1 away wins, the 2 before both 1-1 draws and the 2 before those both 1-0 wins.
- The Gills lead the wins 44 to 36 (29 draws) and out of the last 13 meetings have won 6 and lost 2. Southend have won once in 7 trips to Priestfield.
- Southend suffered just 1 defeat in their last 10 away league games following 4-0 losses to Northampton and Scunthorpe and a 3-0 loss to Rochdale.
- Southend beat Peterborough 4-1 away in their last match extending a run of 21 league games home and away that had seen just 2 defeats.
- 7 of Southend's 16 away games have seen wins (4) or losses (3) by at least 3 goals. All bar 1 of the Gills home games saw no more than a 1 goal difference (Rochdale, 3-0)
- Before today Southend had scored 21 goals away and the Gills had scored 21 at home however United have had 7 away blank sheets, the Gills have had 6 in total.
- Southend's away league record almost matches the Gills home one. Both have 23 points, both have scored 21 goals but United have conceded 2 more goals.
- The Gills beat Southend 8-1 and 5-0 at home (with a 1-1 in between) in the late 80s but lost the 3 after. Since then it is Won 3, Drew 3 and Lost 4.

3.03 Kick-Off [ 3 - 4 - 1 - 2 ]
Before kick off, Utd had scored 27 first half goals, the joint highest amount in the division. The Gills had scored 14 and scored 28 second half ones.

3.18
Cody McDonald has a goal disallowed for a foul.

3.42
PENALTY TO GILLS! Won by Cody McDonald for a foul.

3.43
GOAL! GIllingham 1-0 Southend United: Wright (pen)
Southend have drawn 1 and lost 5 of the away games they conceded first in. Overall they won 1 and lost 7 of the 11 occasions in the league.

3.51
GOAL! GIllingham 2-0 Southend United: Wright

3.54
RED CARD! Former Gill loanee Ryan Innis is sent off for a second bokkable offence.

3.57 Half-time 2-0 (53.55)
The Gills are looking for only their 2nd win of the season after leading at the break. 4 ended in draws and 3 were reversed into defeats.
Southend are win-less when losing at half time. They lost 5 and drew 1 (the point coming in an away game).

4.13
The second half kicks off.

4.51
GOAL! Gillingham 2-1 Southend United: Ranger

4.56
Stuart Nelson punches a ball off the top of Ranger's head from 5 yards out.

5.01 FULL-TIME: 2-1 (101.59)
The Gills ends a winless run of 11 games without a win. 12 without a win last occurred in September 2013.

Position: 17th
Attendance: 6,542 (1,760)
Referee: Dean Whitestone
Goal Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LluI-M34NA
BBC Sport Match Report: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39011932

[lidbid46]

Cant we just not bother? Not sure I can rouse myself to go through it all over again on Saturday!

[Garawa]

We are starting to play the tough games now. These are the ones we do well in (remember Sheff Utd and Bradford recently). lol

[gillsfan1066]

Well the great thing is we can't really play any worse, if we had picked up 6 or 7 points from the last three or four games then draws against the likes of Bolton and Southend would have looked good, now were fighting for our lives and draws and loses against anyone will be useless in our battle for survival.

[Kent_UckyFriedGills]

Another home game,but against tougher opposition.Who would have thought back in August after we beat Southend,that we would be struggling near the bottom and Southend challenging for the play off`s? Southend are scoring for fun,and have lost around 2 in 21 games.The only positive is we do raise our game against the better performing sides.

[Garawa]

Southend beat Peterborough 4-1 at home. It should ring alarm bells but Posh always seem to fall dramatically at this stage of the season and they are in the "safe" zone where the odd defeat doesn't really have an impact. The same can be said of Southend so these games are the more winnable ones at this stage of the season. If we don't take our chances we will get beat easy, if we raise our game out of both necessity and better opposition, I can see us winning. The key will be how much will they want revenge for their two 3-1 home defeats after leading at the start of the season and how much will they look to stay solid to maintain their play-off push knowing we do score goals.

[gillsfan1066]

Southend are hardly in the" safe zone",jeezzz there in the middle of the promotion race and with Bolton playing Sheffield ,and Scunny at Bristol where both games could easily end in draws a win today could easily put Sarfend within 4 or 5 points of an automatic spot ,got me a bad ,bad feeling about today,lol, I hope I am wrong.

[Garawa]

It is though. Traditionally it's easier to beat teams between 5 and 15ish at this stage. A defeat in the play-offs often doesn't knock you out of them and if it does, a win in the next can put you back. A defeat at the top can knock you into the play-offs needing the form sides above to drop points to get you back in. A defeat towards the bottom can find you drop into the relegation zone and often are finding it difficult to win in the first place to get you back out of it. These spots are quite a comfortable area to be in - look how many points we dropped last season before we eventually fell out of them! You're not going to get automatic promotion, you're not going to get relegated and you're not a couple of points behind a place with only a couple of games left so invariably these teams often don't play to their fullest potential especially if playing Sat, Tues, Sat, Tues like us. These are the more winnable ones but we HAVE to take our chances to do it and not give away silly goals meaning we are chasing the game.

[gillsfan1066]

2-0 at the half and were now playing with our 11 against there 10, DON'T PANIC GILLINGHAM just keep doing what your doing, what ever that is, and lets score another to sew the three points up, and I will never say bad things about you again.

[lidbid46]

Well that was exciting! Took the game by the scruff of the neck in the first half and took a deserved two goal lead before they had a player sent off. The penalty was a fair decision; I've just seen a replay and my totally unbiased decision is a definite penalty! Then the second half started and we seemed to have everything under control until we decided to camp in our half and just boot the ball anywhere! Against ten men we should have been able to pass the ball around, take the sting out of the game and go for a third goal. But that doesn't seem to be the way Gills go about things and so obviously we conceded a late goal. So the last few minutes plus injury time were back to panicking in the stands and panicking on the pitch! Thankfully, for once, we managed to get through for a fantastic win against a Southend team that must be fed up with playing us! The crowd were excellent; I love it when the opposition bring lots of away fans, although they were strangely quiet even before we scored. As for the team, the defence was solid and Zesh had an excellent debut, calm and decisive; a defender who defends and gets the ball away from danger. Wright is a changed man; goodness knows what has happened but he is everywhere now and has added goal scoring to his game. I was sad to see Rory having to go off but Parker did very well when he came on and Cody slotted in behind him like he always played there. Martin is a good guy to have coming into our team; calm and assured but with plenty of fight. Everyone else had solid games and this was a good team performance with key players out who will only add more when they return. I only wish we didn't always try to see out games bu defending more and more deeply because we're not clever enough to keep teams out for any length of time, even when they only have ten men! Still, I'm home happy and knackered with no voice left, but a nice vegetable curry and chips and a G and T will taste all the better tonight for the three points!