Jon Whitney rues poor Walsall defending in loss to Southend

A first half goal from Simon Cox was enough to earn the Shrimpers a 1-0 win at the Banks’s Stadium in an uneventful and uninspiring League One clash.

The former Albion striker netted after both Shaun Donnellan and Jon Guthrie failed to deal with Michael Kightly’s cross.

And Whitney felt – from that point – Phil Brown’s side stopped his side from playing.

“Southend always try to make it hard for you to play,” he said.

“They try to stop you getting your tempo, they try to stop you linking play, they’ve done a man-marking job on Erhun (Oztumer).

“But you know that’s how it’s going to be – you know it’s going to be a cagey affair. And you can’t give a goal like that away.

“It’s the manner of the goal that’s poor. You can’t give goals like that away because a team like that they punish you.

“Once you give a goal like that to a Phil Brown team, he’s one of the best in the business at frustrating you.

“They kill the game even from an early stage and they don’t allow any momentum, which is what home teams want and they just make it really difficult for you.

“Although we came stronger in the second half and created a few chances, the first goal is the sucker punch today because it gives them something to hold on to.”

Whitney conceded his team didn’t move the ball quick enough after falling a goal behind.

“The first goal changes the dynamics of the game – suddenly they don’t have to rush it,” he continued.

“They’ve got the points in the bag so they just have to stop us getting momentum.

“What we’ve got to do is when we do get it, we can’t then drop down to their pace.

“We have to move the ball with limited touches and use the width on the pitch but we didn’t do that in the first half well enough after the goal.

“Second half we improved, we got Zeli on the pitch and knew we had to the get the ball wide to get balls in the box.

“We had a few half-chances but it was very disappointing to lose our unbeaten home run.”