Campbell appointed new Southend boss
FORMER Macclesfield Town boss Sol Campbell is back in football after he was appointed as manager of League One side Southend United.
Campbell takes over a Southend side that are in 22nd place, eight points from safety after winning just one of their 15 games so far this season.
He’s now hoping to stage another great escape after he helped Macclesfield avoid relegation last season, and he has reflected on what he learned from the Moss Rose.
“In all experiences you can take the good, the bad and the ugly. For me it’s all about moving on, about progression, improving as a manager, and this is a challenge,” he said.
“We’ve got some good players here, but we need to start working towards being competitive as a team, we’ve got be able to compete and we’ve not really been doing that. We will work towards that.
“It’s a new challenge for sure. That’s obvious. It’s a step up, but as a step up comes all the responsibilities because you’re in a higher league, on average they’re better players so you’ve got to really step your game up.
“Me personally with the players I’ve got, we’ve got step up, train hard, do more and overachieve now. We’ve got a deficit and we have to close that deficit. But the main thing is performances-wise, that’s got to go up another level.
“Instead of being on the back foot we’ve got to be on the front foot. That will take time and confidence, but we will try to do that. That’s the main thing. And we will work hard and work towards that.
“It’s normal, with a lot of losses, that comes with a lack of confidence, so I have to build that in. We can definitely do that in how we set up and getting fitter, understanding the roles. I think that’s very important for all the players to understand their roles and get fitter and stronger.
“As you get stronger in your own position the confidence will come, but we need to start winning games and be able to be competitive. That’s the main thing really. Every time we go out on the pitch we’ve got to compete, that’s the first rule in order to go toe-to-toe with whoever we’re playing.
“If you’re going into games at 80 per cent you never know your true level in the individual games. And that’s why you’ve got to push yourself and in every game get better and better, fitter and fitter and that’s what we’ve got to do as a team. I’ll definitely be doing that as a manager. We’ve got our work cut out but we’re ready for the challenge.”