Brown – A Fully Deserved Pompey Victory

I’m a little late here, but manager Phil Brown was obviously left delighted following our victory over Portsmouth last weekend.

A two nil victory thanks to goals from Barry Corr and on loan Shaquile Coulthirst helped Southend shoot up the league table and build on our reasonable start to the season, which had seen us go without a win in five games as we just couldn’t seem to get that necessary goal in front and stay there recently, so speaking to the Official Site following the game there were plenty of positives for the manager and plenty to make him happy.

‘It was a hard fought win, but, against Portsmouth you’re always going to be guaranteed a big game and that’s what it was. It made it a great atmosphere with the place rocking and when our fans get behind the team, the players respond and I felt that’s exactly what we did. It was a good strong performance and I believe we were worthy winners.’

With Brown talking about it being the start of a big week for Southend given the teams we play on the Sat-Tue-Sat schedule, the gaffer went on to talk about how it was the perfect start for everyone and following our recent run it was a much needed boost of confidence for the players.

Another big thing for him was that we scored from a set piece, as that has been something he’s commented that has been missing from our game so far this campaign and he knows that if we want to be the ‘threat’ we hope to be this season, set pieces will be vitally important – both in terms of how we approach them defensively, but also how we make them count at the other end taking as many goals from them as we can.

He did finish by explaining that he didn’t felt we did anything different in that game to others, but it’s not luck, it’s about making it happen and against Portsmouth we did.

‘The quality of balls we were playing haven’t been any different from in the last 26 games, we just haven’t got on the end of it – it’s not luck, it’s about commitment and desire, maybe a cut eye for the cause, but that’s what we need and if that wins us games then job done.’