Burge- 5.5 - doesn't inspire confidence in the crowd or the defence. Distribution improved from recent games, but still could not be classed as 'good'.
Phillips - 5 - poor. Justified what I have always thought; passionate, committed, offensively sound but not a right back. He's a RWB playing RB and his poor defensive and positional play causes mistakes.
Johnson - 4.5 - awful. He scored, sure, but his predominant job is to prevent us conceding. He didn't win one header against Noel Hunt, a player not exactly renowned for his aerial ability. He got made to look a fool by a more experienced and intelligent striker. Poor positional sense.
Ricketts - 5.5 - not as composed as usual. Was it him affecting Reda, or Reda affecting his performance I wonder? I'm putting it down to a bad day at the office.
Stokes - 7 - always been a fan and glad he is proving all the naysayers wrong. Solid defensively and always an outlet offensively.
Fleck - 6.5 - still looked better than recent seasons, but a poor game in comparison to this one. Looked to get on the ball and try to dictate play, but a few sloppy passes and poor decisions let him down. If memory serves, a failed Hollywood ball of his was intercepted, left us short and led to the pen.
Vincelot - 6 - solid enough performance, didn't do much either way. No real comments to make.
Murphy - 7 - non existent for 60 minutes, ran at his defender once and earned a free kick and suddenly his confidence was there. If he keeps that confidence going and learns to go outside as much as he does in, will be a threat this season.
Lameires - 5.5 - unfortunate 5/10 minutes ruined his confidence and ultimately his performance. He started well, but you felt he missed the movement in front/alongside him today. Whether that was due to no JM or just an organised Southend I'm not sure. Still think he's an asset.
JOB - 6 - worked hard and tried to be an outlet where possible.
Armstrong - 6 - anonymous for a lot of the game, party due to Southend tactics, but he needs to try to adapt/create different runs/options in those situations. He was desperate to score again - which is good, but not at the expense of failing to see other options.
Very poor first half, but showed good character to come back to draw and potentially deserve the win, in the second half. We scored twice, created lots and scored a pen, all without JM in the team and an under performing RL and AA.