Match Preview: Southend vs Blackpool

Southend United welcome Blackpool to Roots Hall for their 2nd Sky Bet League One game of the season.

The Shrimpers, led by Kevin Bond, come into this tie off a 1-0 defeat away at Coventry City last Saturday who began their new life groundsharing at Birmingham City’s St Andrew’s Trillion Trophy Stadium on that same day.

The Seasiders, now led by former-Leeds United and Sunderland boss Simon Grayson, come into this game off a 2-0 victory over Bristol Rovers last Saturday in front of a bumper crowd of 11,359 people with their goals coming from Jay Spearing and Armand Gnanduillet in what was Grayson’s first game in charge of his second spell at the club.

Team news

Earlier this week, Southend bid adieu to 19 year midfielder Dru Yearwood who signed for Championship side Brentford for an undisclosed fee after having progressed through the academy and into the first team over eight years with the club. However, on Wednesday, the Shrimpers announced the loan signing of Layton Ndukwu from Leicester for the season.

New signing Liam Ridgewell could make his debut for the Shrimpers as could Ndukwu. Southend will monitor Simon Cox who featured off the bench last weekend at Coventry whilst Rob Kiernan will miss out due to ligament damage.

For Blackpool, only midfielder Matty Virtue will miss out with a thigh injury but otherwise, manager Simon Grayson has still got a strong squad to choose from.

Views From Kevin Bond

“It’s been a good week. We were disappointed [last weekend]because it was the first game of the season and we didn’t start the game like we wanted and there were reasons for it, but we couldn’t get after them like we wanted to until we had made a change.

Then we did but had gone a goal behind. We did enough to get back in it, had a couple of really good opportunities but it wasn’t to be.

I think we learnt a lesson, or I would like to think we learnt a lesson from that, and the key is not to make the same mistake again. We may all make mistakes but hopefully we don’t make the same mistake again.”

Views From Simon Grayson

“We’ve got a good squad here, which we want to keep adding to. If a player leaves at any stage of the season that will be because it’s the right thing for the football club. We want more bodies in the building to make sure we have difficult decisions to make about who to leave out.

I’ve said to the players, ‘If you’ve got the shirt for the first game of the season, then do whatever is required to make sure you’ve still got it at the end of the season. If you’ve done that, then you’ve done something right’.”