Southend’s rebuild: what the squad has gained and lost

At Wealdstone, Kieron Dyer took Vontae Daley-Campbell off before a second booking could leave Southend with ten men. Zavier Massiah-Edwards went to right-back, where Dyer acknowledged he was uncomfortable. A squad assembled over the summer, then strengthened during the autumn, had reached the end of October asking a winger to cover a position the manager was still trying to fill.

I like what Southend have added with the ball. I am less convinced by the cover available when a starter is missing, especially after the departures removed players who had played together for years.

What left, and what stayed

The departures removed established relationships across the side. Gus Scott-Morriss went to Oldham, taking a substantial attacking threat from the right. Nathan Ralph joined Chelmsford after four years as captain, and Collin Andeng-Ndi’s move to Peterborough meant replacing a familiar goalkeeper as well. Andy Dallas’s loan ended before he joined Walsall; his 17 league goals from last season were another significant loss.

There was change in the players who helped the side move and compete between those positions, too. Jack Bridge’s carrying offered a familiar way up the pitch. Cav Miley went to Chelmsford and Keenan Appiah-Forson to Oldham, reducing the midfield options, while Joe Gubbins’s departure to Yeovil removed another defender familiar with the group. Southend had to establish new partnerships through much of the team while changing how they played.

The May retained list had already confirmed contract-expiry departures, including Miley and Tom Hopper. Ralph and Scott-Morriss also left before Dyer’s appointment on 8 June, while others moved on after the negotiations continued into the summer. Those decisions span the change of manager and the recruitment work overseen by director of football Oliver Gage.

Nor has the scoring come entirely from the new arrivals. Players already at the club, counting Harry Cardwell’s existing loan becoming permanent, have supplied 21 league goals. New arrivals have contributed 16, with Halifax’s own goal completing the total of 38. Leon Chambers-Parillon and Oli Coker have continued to contribute within the changed approach. Southend have more than covered the attacking output lost with Scott-Morriss and Dallas, while still recruiting Ash Palmer in October to replace the kind of defensive leadership Ralph had supplied.

Where the additions have worked

Joe Duncan’s loan from Bristol City has supplied important saves at Solihull and Carlisle. His first senior Wales call-up is a welcome recognition of that progress. Jack Sims’s permanent arrival from Sutton also filled the need for another senior goalkeeper; he has already started league matches and gives Dyer an option which does not use a loan place.

The full-backs have been among the clearest gains going forward. Daley-Campbell’s crossing has created chances from the right, while Kyle McAdam, signed after Harry Boyes left for York, has provided a productive outlet on the other side. McAdam supplied both first-half goals at Worthing. Their willingness to advance is part of how Southend put opponents under pressure, and it requires the players behind those attacks to hold their positions.

I can see why July’s podcast welcomed Darren Oldaker and Anthony Hartigan: Oldaker has contributed goals and can receive in tight spaces, while Hartigan gives Southend a player through whom they can build from deeper positions. Dyer wanted Hartigan available to receive from Duncan when explaining his approach after Worthing.

Promise Omochere’s September arrival from Bristol Rovers has made a clear attacking difference. Six league goals include the winner against Yeovil. His hold-up work against Tamworth helped the players around him reach the area, and he supplied the pass for Chambers-Parillon’s Carlisle equaliser.

There is more choice around the centre-forward, with Josh Popoola and Ryan Colclough giving Dyer alternatives in the wide positions. Sahid Kamara’s ability to carry the ball at defenders has also been useful from the bench, most decisively at Boston. The October loans of Omari Patrick from Forest Green and Tyreece Simpson from Port Vale extended those options while the season was already under way. At Worthing, Patrick repeatedly tested Taylor Seymour and Simpson scored on debut, before failing to finish after rounding Seymour when Jayden Moore recovered to block. With only two appearances apiece, the evidence is still limited, but Dyer has more ways to replace a tiring forward in his recognised position.

Experience was still needed in October

Palmer’s arrival from York addressed a need the earlier recruitment had left unresolved: Southend wanted a centre-half who could organise the players around him and deal with the first contact. The defensive pairings had continued to change before his arrival in October.

Dan Cox and Rayan Oyebade had arrived as young centre-halves, from Derby and West Ham respectively, the latter on loan. Oyebade’s work against Scunthorpe showed what he could contribute, while his heavy touch against Berkhamsted was costly. They have been learning within a defence whose partners and protection have changed, with experienced players also sharing responsibility for the errors.

Palmer helped give Southend more authority on his Halifax debut. Eight goals conceded in his first three league appearances show how much work remains, and Dyer also identified his lost duel before Worthing’s second goal. I wanted the signing to improve the unit, including how the players around him dealt with the next ball. He needs the midfield close enough to contest it while he deals with the centre-forward.

Seven loans, five places

At Wealdstone, Duncan and Palmer occupied loan places alongside Omochere, Patrick and Simpson, using the five permitted in the matchday squad. Oyebade and Sean Keogh, the left-back on loan from Brighton, were the other two loanees, and both were left out.

Oyebade is a centre-half and Keogh is left-back cover, so neither would have supplied a specialist replacement for Daley-Campbell. It does mean the loan limit was restricting defensive alternatives. Adding another loan right-back would require a further selection choice unless something else changed; a permanent signing would not use one of those five places.

Southend had tried a specialist loan there. Ryan Battrum arrived from West Ham in September and made one substitute appearance before returning. “We tried to keep Ryan,” Dyer told the Echo, explaining that the player wanted guaranteed minutes while Daley-Campbell was playing well. Dyer had cited the approaching suspension when discussing that departure on 15 October, more than a fortnight before the fifth booking at Wealdstone.

That makes it unfair to claim Southend simply chose to discard Battrum. It also left a known vacancy which the club had not filled when Daley-Campbell needed replacing. The short loans of striker Ephraim Yeboah and goalkeeper Finley Woodham also ended after minimal involvement, but Dyer said those two decisions were Southend’s.

How much of the squad can Dyer use?

Cardwell’s availability has restricted the chance to develop a partnership with Omochere. All four of his league goals had come by Gateshead in September. The Echo reported that he had missed the three games before Wealdstone with a hamstring problem. Dyer then said he was back, but he was absent from the squad with no reason given for that omission. Omochere’s 51st-minute withdrawal at Wealdstone also remains unexplained. His earlier departure at Boston and the fatigue Dyer described after Worthing had already made support for the centre-forward important.

Duncan’s Wales call-up now removes him from the Aldershot match on 14 November: Wales face Norway that day and Portugal on 17 November. Sims is expected to replace him. The permanent goalkeeper recruited in August is therefore about to fill an immediate vacancy, with Duncan’s absence also freeing a loan place in that matchday squad.

At right-back, Sam Austin’s loan to Kidderminster has reduced the cover as well as removing an attacking substitute. He started there against Berkhamsted, while Massiah-Edwards filled in at Wealdstone. Dyer has acknowledged that neither looked comfortable, but Austin was an alternative he had actually used, and he has gone the week before Daley-Campbell’s ban. Southend describe the loan as short-term, with a possible extension to the end of the season and a recall option. No new right-back has yet been announced.

The squad has to fit the correction

Dyer now says he may need another defensive player at an attacker’s expense to keep five behind the ball. In July he praised Tommy Backwell for “anticipating second balls and winning individual battles”, precisely the qualities Southend have struggled to show when attacks break down. Backwell’s only first-team start has come in the rotated cup side against Berkhamsted.

Harry Taylor can play midfield as well as centre-half, and Gage said in May that he could take on “an important leadership role”. He started when Dyer changed the balance at Eastleigh, where Southend held their lead until the 89th minute. He was back on the bench against Fylde. Within days of Dyer’s admission about the protection behind attacks, Taylor joined Hornchurch until 3 January.

The rebuild has improved Southend’s attacking choices. Dyer has been less convincing in how he uses the players who might help protect them. Before another arrival is treated as the answer, I want Dyer to explain why Backwell has been so little used and Taylor has been allowed to leave when their stated qualities are so relevant to the correction he now wants.

Part two of a three-part season review. Next: the National League table against the July predictions, with a look at every club.