Football Season Guide

Southend came ever so close to making the play-offs last season but lost out to eventual play-off winners Millwall by a single point in a race for 6th spot that went into the final round. Nonetheless, Phil Brown, who enters the upcoming season as the second longest-serving manager in the division, can at least be pleased with the fact that his side have been showing obvious signs of improvement during his reign. Each of his four full seasons at the helm has seen the Shrimpers doing better than they did the year before. Obviously, if this trend continues, Southend will qualify for the play-offs this time around and Brown has spent the summer shaping up his squad in a manner that would allow him to mastermind a top six finish. The list of players who departed may seem rather big at first but it consists mostly of fringe players and those who hardly played last season due to injury problems such as Dave Mooney. The only real blow is the departure of Will Atkinson who featured fairly regularly but has now joined Mansfield Town. Brown has been very selective when bringing in new players and has made only three signings during the summer. In Michael Kightly and Michael Turner, he has brought in two players with Premier League experience, while he knows all about Stephen Hendrie. The West Ham defender impressed on loan last season before having his stay cut short by injury. All in all, while not changing the squad too much, Brown has definitely strengthened it during the summer and Southend will enter the new campaign confident of building on their last season's efforts.