At our 4 August cutoff, Southend United’s opening-week squad stands at 21 senior players. Rico Richards, Jack Sims and Kyle McAdam have come through the door since Friday, while Harry Boyes has left for York City. Four moves in four days have answered two of the clearest questions around Kieron Dyer’s rebuild, but one large question remains.
Where are the 25-plus goals coming from?
That is our benchmark, not a target published by the club. Southend already have forwards who can contribute and there is attacking ability throughout the group. What the squad does not yet appear to contain is an obvious, orthodox centre-forward who makes that number feel realistic on his own. If the aim is a stronger promotion push, it is a fair concern.
There is another. This is a genuinely new team. Fourteen senior arrivals have lifted the options available to Dyer, but new combinations need time. Southend may have built a stronger squad on paper without every part of it being ready to work together at Altrincham.
The weekend moved quickly
Richards arrived from Port Vale for an undisclosed fee on Friday. The 22-year-old attacking midfielder signed for two years, with the club holding an option for a third.
His appeal is in the different pictures he can create. Richards can operate centrally or from wider positions and gives Southend another player who wants the ball in attacking areas. With Ryan Colclough, Tommy Backwell, Lewys Twamley and Sahid Kamara already added this summer, Dyer has several ways of getting craft and movement around the forwards.
Jack Sims followed on Saturday, returning to the club where he spent six years as a young player. The former Sutton United goalkeeper signed a one-year deal with an option for a second.
That move closes the most obvious hole in the July squad picture. Joe Duncan was the only senior goalkeeper in the group after Collin Andeng Ndi’s departure. Sims brings National League experience, genuine competition and the emotional pull of a local player coming home. Southend no longer enter the opening week one injury or suspension away from an emergency in goal.
The third arrival came on Monday. Kyle McAdam joined after leaving Nottingham Forest and signed a two-year contract, again with a club option for another season. The 21-year-old defender can play at left-back or centre-back and spent last season on loan with Altrincham.
McAdam’s arrival landed on the same day that Boyes completed an undisclosed-fee move to York City. York’s announcement said the move remained subject to FA and EFL approval, while Southend described the transfer as completed.
The timing makes McAdam the natural candidate to take Boyes’ place on the left, although nobody has promised him the shirt. He is younger, knows the division and arrives with recent experience of the club Southend face first. It is a sensible piece of squad planning. The test is whether McAdam can settle quickly enough to make the exchange feel seamless rather than merely logical.
What the 21 looks like
The current senior count is seven retained players still at the club plus 14 arrivals. Southend also gave professional terms to Jack Stone, Joshua Barrett, Mitchell Ward and Nikolay Zlatev for the under-23 programme. They remain an important part of the wider setup, but we have kept them separate from this senior count.
Goalkeepers: Joe Duncan, Jack Sims.
Defenders: Daniel Cox, Rayan Oyebade, Vontae Daley-Campbell, Ben Goodliffe, Harry Taylor, Kyle McAdam.
Midfield and attack: Sam Austin, Leon Parillon, Oli Coker, Charley Kendall, Harry Cardwell, Josh Popoola, Darren Oldaker, Anthony Hartigan, Lewys Twamley, Ryan Colclough, Tommy Backwell, Sahid Kamara, Rico Richards.
There is more balance here than there was two weeks ago. Two senior goalkeepers are now in place. The defence has options on both sides and through the middle. Oldaker and Hartigan give the midfield an experienced base, while the attacking group contains pace, flexibility and players capable of finding pockets rather than waiting for the game to come to them.
The raw turnover is still enormous. Fourteen players have arrived through permanent transfers, free-agent signings and loans. The outward ledger now reaches 19 when releases, permanent moves and returning loan players are counted together. That corrected total includes Keenan Appiah-Forson’s move to Oldham, which our earlier rebuild piece omitted, and Boyes’ move to York.
Those numbers matter because football teams are built through relationships as much as recruitment lists. A goalkeeper needs to know when his centre-backs will drop. Full-backs need to learn which winger will protect the space behind them. Midfielders need to recognise who wants the ball to feet and who is already moving beyond the next line.
Preseason can begin that work. It cannot guarantee it is finished by the first Saturday.
Stronger options, less shared history
The encouraging reading is that Dyer now has choices. Sims and Duncan create a proper goalkeeping decision. Daley-Campbell, Oyebade and McAdam add athleticism around Goodliffe, Taylor and Cox. Oldaker and Hartigan should give the middle of the pitch a clearer shape, while the players ahead of them offer several possible combinations.
That range should help across a 46-game National League season. Injuries, suspensions and changes of form will come. Southend needed a squad capable of absorbing them without changing identity every week.
The opening weeks may still look uneven. This is not last season’s team with two or three additions. It is a rebuild that asks retained players and new arrivals to establish trust at speed. If a pass goes behind a run at Altrincham, or a defensive handover comes a second late, it will not automatically mean the recruitment is wrong. It may simply mean the side is still learning itself.
Patience cannot become an excuse for poor performances, but the scale of the change should shape expectations. The National League does not wait for a new group to settle. Altrincham will see the same turnover and test it.
The missing focal point
Harry Cardwell, Charley Kendall and Josh Popoola give Southend different qualities in and around the front line. Coker, Austin, Richards and the new wide players can add goals too. A good side rarely depends on one player for everything.
Even so, a promotion push usually needs somebody who makes the penalty area feel dangerous before the ball arrives. Southend do not currently have an obvious centre-forward with a recent 25-plus-goal season attached to his name. That does not mean one of the existing forwards cannot produce a career year, or that the goals cannot be shared. It means the answer is not yet visible.
If another striker arrives, the recruitment case will be easy to understand. If nobody does, Dyer and his staff will need to find those goals through structure, confidence and several contributors rather than one recognised scorer.
That is the final tension in an otherwise much healthier squad picture. Southend have moved quickly enough to close the goalkeeper gap and replace Boyes’ role. They have added creativity and depth. They have also created a team with a high ceiling, very little shared history and no guaranteed source of the goal total supporters will associate with a serious title challenge.
Saturday’s first team sheet at Altrincham will not answer every question. It will tell us which answers Dyer trusts first.