It feels ages since our last away game as we have had 3 consecutive home games of late, it has been 3 weeks since the Bantams last jumped onto the coach and became the first side to win at New Meadow.
Bantams are good at dishing out maiden home losses
As just mentioned, our last away game we became the first away team to win in the league at New Meadow, the previous away game we were the first away team to win at the DW stadium, and for the record we were the first away team to win at Gillingham and Peterborough United all in the league to be factually correct. Why bring this up? Well, believe it or not Southend United are unbeaten at home in 10 games in the 3rd division this season boasting 5 wins and 5 draws, and remain the only team now unbeaten at home in the 3rd tier. As strange how the away fixtures have panned out for the Bantams, we are now visiting our 3rd ground on our travels in a row where the home team is unbeaten. Can the Bantams make it a hat trick and dish out 3 maiden home losses in 3 consecutive away games? The Shrimpers appear a tastier prospect than the Shrews or Latics.
Never ever eat yellow snow
Or worse, Brown. Brown has been at the helm at Roots Hall now for almost 5 years, but to many, when people think of Phil Brown, they think of him as ex manager of Hull City, and quite rightly so. It is 10 years to the season that Brown took Hull to the Premiership through the play offs and spent 4 years at the East Riding club. Phil is a manager I have always rated and respected, and in recent years his career has descended down the leagues. Southend United has been a great spell for Brown so don’t frown when you hear his name, in 244 games, he has 97 wins, 65 draws and 82 losses and gained promotion through the play offs from League 2 to the 3rd division. Continuity has been good for Southend United and are establishing themselves strongly in League 1. Last season the Shrimpers missed out on the play offs by a single point, which would have displaced Millwall due to a superior goal difference.
Head to head and form
37 games
10 Southend United wins
15 Bradford City Wins
12 Draws
Overall the Bantams don’t have a bad record at all against the Shrimpers, winning in just under half of all the games between the 2 clubs. This fixture last season ended in a 3-0 win for United thanks to a brace from ex City player Will Atkinson and an own goal from Romain Vincelot. It was 2 season ago that City earned the double over Brown’s Shrimpers, the game at Roots Hall ending 0-1 from an early goal from Lee Evans. You have to go back 7 seasons for the last Southend double, the home match ending 4-0 with a Barry Corr penalty and a brace from Ryan Hall and a goal from Kane Ferdinand who is the cousin of current Southend defender Anton Ferdinand.
Shrimpers last 6 LLWDDL
Shrimpers last 6 home WDWWDW
City last 6 WLWWLW
City last 6 away WWWLWW
5 wins in City’s last 6 games on the road and that is against teams like Wigan, Shrewsbury, Portsmouth and MK Dons (in the league let’s not leave that fact out). Mightily impressive in anyone’s book. The Shrimpers boast 4 wins in their last 6 at home in all competitions, a couple of them in the Football League Trophy. United’s form of late isn’t exactly cracking, 1 win in their last 6 games might prove a good time to have a trip down to Essex.
Southend’s last 6 results
Bristol Rovers (A) 0-3 loss
Peterborough United (A) 2-0 loss
Oldham Athletic (H) 2-0 win
Oxford United (H) 1-1 draw
MK Dons (A) 1-1 draw
Portsmouth (A) 1-0 loss
City’s last 6 results
Rochdale (H) 4-3 win
Oldham Athletic (H) 0-1 loss
Plymouth Argyle (H) 3-1 win
Shrewsbury Town (A) 0-1 win
Scunthorpe United (H) 1-2 loss
Wigan Athletic (A) 1-2 win
Goals in numbers, last 6 games
United For 5, Against 8, Blanks 3, Clean sheets 1
United (home) For 8, Against 2, Blanks 0, Clean sheets 4
City For 11, Against 8, Blanks 1, Clean sheets 1
City (away) For 10, Against 5, Blanks 0, Clean sheets 3
Boz’s match verdict: Away Win
5 Fun Facts
1. Current players to play for both Southend and Bradford are Rob Kiernan and Adam Thompson. Kiernan had a short loan spell in the 2010/11 season featuring in 8 games for the Bantams in League 2, so you may be forgiven for not recognising the name. In the summer, Kiernan joined from Rangers and this season has started 1 game in the League cup and has 1 sub appearance off the bench in the league. Thompson initially had a loan spell at Roots Hall in 2013/14 making the move permanent in the January window and only left in the summer of this year making 121 games scoring 3 goals. Thompson is on loan from Bury at the moment making 10 games for the Bantams hitting the net once.
2. Southend and City have met before at Roots Hall on the 16th December. Back in 2011 with the Bantams taking the win with a single goal from defender Luke Oliver.
3. You wouldn’t expect Southend of all teams to attract expensive players, well in their squad, these players have all commanded fees of 7 figures. Anton Ferdinand £8m, Michael Turner £4m, Marc Antoine-Fortune £3.8m, Simon Cox £2m (and £1m) and Stephen Hendrie £1m. That’s a total of £19.8 MILLION spent over the years on part of the Southend squad. £20m, that’s almost the cost of 2 season tickets at Leeds United.
4. Most people will know Anton Ferdinand is the brother of Rio Ferdinand, especially after the public support he received back in 2013 due to an incident involving John Terry. But did you know the Ferdinand brothers are the cousins of ex England international, Les Ferdinand.
5. Southend is officially the warmest and driest place in the UK, and yet you would be more likely to see someone wearing shorts and a t-shirt in this current weather in Bradford than in Essex in the middle of December.
