Brown is keen to get all defensive
PHIL BROWN credited a series of heart-to-hearts with his defenders as Southend edged out Chesterfield in a competitive encounter at Roots Hall.
A first-half goal by centre-back Adam Thompson was enough to earn all three points and extend the Shrimpers unbeaten home run to six games in all competitions.
Brown said: “Clean sheets are part and parcel of winning. I’ve had numerous meetings this week with individuals.
“In my programme notes I made reference to a meeting on Monday morning at nine o’clock with Adam Barrett. I’ve had meetings with Adam Thompson and Anton Ferdinand. Defenders, trying to get that mentality back that was part and parcel of our DNA over the last three years.
“Once we get that mentality back, and 1-0 results like this and performances like this bring that back, then we can go to places like Bradford and MK Dons with a little but more confidence that we can come away with a victory.”
The game started tentatively but was livened up by Ben Coker’s old school reducer on Gboly Ariyibi for which he was lucky to escape with just a yellow card.
The hosts tried to find Nile Ranger as quickly as possible and the former Newcastle man was an aerial threat throughout.
The only goal came after 29 minutes. Chesterfield failed to clear and after some pinball in their box, Thompson stabbed the loose ball right-footed into the roof of the net.
The Spireites almost levelled nine minutes later when Kristian Dennis latched onto a ball over the top, but Mark Oxley saved and the ball bounced wide.
The closest Chesterfield came to an equaliser was in the 74th minute, when Oxley spilt Ariyibi’s deflected cross and Ricky German’s close-range attempt was blocked by Thompson.
That was a rare opening though, and Danny Wilson bemoaned his side’s poor decision making on the ball.
The Chesterfield boss said: “It’s the final ball. We’ve had so many great chances of creating better openings than we made for ourselves.
“The final pass that we had, the decision making in the final pass at times, was very, very poor.
“That’s what we’ll create chances with, making the better decisions at the right time, and we didn’t do that enough times here. Particularly on the counter-attack we did it many times and frittered possession away.”