Southend United 1-1 West Ham

By Stuart Byford at Roots Hall.

Southend United ended their pre-season campaign with a well earned draw against Premier League opposition West Ham United.

Paul Sturrock’s new look side more than held their own against their opponents in front of a respectable 8,008 crowd.

The hastily arranged pre-season game was delayed by 15 minutes due to crowd congestion.

Both sides started slowly but it was West Ham who had the first real opportunity. Manuel Da Costa picked up a Pablo Barrera corner but was unable to keep his effort down at the back post.

A couple of minutes later Southend were again under pressure as former Blues loanee, Junior Stanislas, had a long range shot saved by Glenn Morris.

Paul Sturrock’s men then had their first chance of the game through a Louie Soares corner. The young winger, who signed from Aldershot, found Luke Prosser at the back post but the defender couldn’t keep his header down.

West Ham then had a couple more good efforts stopped by Morris. On 20 minutes, Anthony Edgar found himself one on one with the Southend goalkeeper but his low drive was well saved. Sooner after Diamanti went on an impressive run, only for his light chip to fall into Morris’ arms.

The second half again started slowly and wasn’t until the 62nd minute that the game came to life.

A 20 yard shot from West Ham’s Diamanti took a deflection and found it’s way over Morris’ head into the back of the net.

The Hammers’ lead only lasted 8 minutes, however. Southend won a free kick down the left side and the quick thinking Soares rolled the ball to the impressive Anthony Grant who fired a well placed shot past Stech from the edge of the area.

Southend then pushed on and had a couple of attempts to grab a second through Prosser and Paterson.

Anthony Grant was then booked with a few minutes to go after a scuffle in the middle of the park.

TEAMS:

Southend United:

Morris, Clohessy (Mohsni 46), Phillips, Prosser, Barker, Soares (Sturrock 77), Grant (Herd 88), Easton, Gill (Bizoud 56), Spencer (Paterson 56), Corr (Zaaboub 77)

Subs not used: Evans, Coughlan, Crawford, James-Lewis and Hall

West Ham United:

Stech, Spector (Spence 77), Daprela, Gabbidon, Da Costa (Fry 63) , Kovac, Edgar (Lee 63), Diamanti (Sears 87), Piquoinne (Nouble 71), Stanislas, Barrera (Montano 71)

Subs not used: Kurucz, Eyjolfsson, Moncur and Brown