French Foreign Legion to the rescue, again!

Last updated : 08 November 2008 By Shrimpers24


Southend seemed to be heading for an embarrassing defeat against their Blue Square North hosts but for the second weekend running the French midfielder came to the rescue by scoring in the dying seconds to secure a draw.

Blues boss Steve Tilson started the afternoon OK by giving Herd his full first team debut, and he was the best player in the team along with Christophe, with his quiet assurance on the ball and Delap like throw-ins, but it all went downhill after that.

Tilly refused to start with Scannell wide instead of HRK but allowed Grant to play, somewhere.

Telford started with all the possession but luckily for Southend didn't know what to do with it. Though an early free-kick on the edge of the box, a Herd mistimed tackle, his only error, flashed wide with the returning Mildenhall nowhere to be seen.

However, against the run of play, it was the Blues that took the lead when a quickly taken Christophe free-kick carved open the AFC Telford defence and enabled Francis Laurent to sprint through and score.

Southend looked to have doubled their advantage at the start of the second half but Peter Clarke's well struck volley was ruled out for a harsh offside against Adam Barrett, who was adjudged to have been offside when standing in front of the keeper.

Clarke had another chance just seconds later when Telford centre back Naylor was correctly adjudged to have handballed in the area but he struck the penalty against the left post.

That, of course, would have been it and we could have said 'thank you for the game lads' and left, unfortunately for Tilly's boys the double let off spurred AFC Telford back into life big time.

First, in the 70th minute they drew back level when Jon Adams drilled a low, left foot shot into the bottom right hand corner of the net from 20 yards after a free-kick from Lee Vaughan had only been partially cleared.

Worse was to follow when, second, Adams put his side in front with a neat, close range finish just 13 minutes later.

But Christophe had the final say as he drilled home a deflected drive from 20 yards to set up a replay between the two teams.

Odd game, Tilly got the shape of the side wrong and we were lucky to scrape a draw, however we could have been three up early in the second half!

Talking to Blues World Tilly felt his side should have been 'out of sight' in the second half: "We were on a hiding to nothing coming here, but we have another chance to reach the second round. We are now going to be at home and it's going to be a better chance for us there. Peter Clarke's goal should have stood and if it had, the game would have been over. We needed to show a bit more quality in front of goal to hurt them, but the player's commitment was spot-on."

Ratings: Mildenhall - 6, Francis - 5, Barrett - 6, Clarke - 6, Herd - 7, Betsy - 5, Christophe - 7, McCormack - 6, Grant - 5, Laurent - 6, Revell - 5.

Subs; Scannell (for Betsy 71) - 6, Walker (for Grant 85) - 5.

A full 'Day Tripper' with comments behind the markings tomorrow, and their not pretty.

The draw for the second round of the FA Cup will be live on ITV Sunday November 9 at 1.35pm.

Southend / AFC Telford are Ball 29.

AFC Telford United
v
Southend United
http://www.thelittlegazette.com/players/current_squad_list.asp?teamno=480
Starting Line-ups
1Young
1Meredith
1Cowan
1Whitehead
1Naylor
1Vaughan
0Bermiglio
1Adams
1Blakeman
1Moore
1Brown
Substitutes
0Taylor
1Khela
1Jagielka
1Rodgers
1Fearns
Starting Line-ups
1Mildenhall
2Francis
5Clarke
6Barrett
18Herd
20Christophe
21Betsy
8McCormack
7Grant
26Laurent
11Revell
Substitutes
24Joyce
30O'Keefe
15Sankofa
12Scannell
29Furlong
10Walker
0Hazell