17 hours Ago
STEVE Pitt felt a point was the very least Braintree Town deserved following their 0-0 draw at Southend United on Good Friday, writes DAVID WARD. Iron boss Pitt felt his side missed late chances to have won the National League derby at Roots Hall by two or three goals. Pitt said: "Naturally I'm pleased we took a point from this game which was the least we deserved because in reality we should have won with the chances we had late on.
"In the second half we had to change our formation again but the longer the game went on the more confident we looked and we repeatedly kept opening them up at the back and we had decent chances which we should have put away. "We knew it would be a really hard game here particularly with them still pushing for a play-off spot and with such a huge crowd behind them. "But I thought we adapted excellently every time we had to make a change and what was missing was that final killer instinct in their area.
"In the latter stages of the game we looked the more likely side to score and we were denied a blatant penalty too - just how that was not given for a foul on Kyrell Lisbie when both the referee and linesman were in a clear position to give it, we will never know." (Image: JON WEAVER) There was certainly no excuses for not finishing Southend off in the latter stages. Lisbie twice fluffed his lines when clear, while substitute Chay Cooper somehow lent back to shoot from the edge of the area on 87 minutes to send the ball over the bar with the goal gaping.
Lisbie, Tom Blackwell and John Akinde saw their scrambled efforts cleared off the home goal-line. When Southend did threaten - and they did on several occasions - it took some tremendous saves from young Iron keeper Henry Gray to keep them at bay. Gray's performance made him man of the match in front of a National League best crowd of the season with 9,614 packed into Roots Hall, including 506 vociferous Iron fans.
It could also have been a different outcome had referee Jason Richardson been strong enough in the first minute to send off home skipper Nathan Ralph for an over the top tackle on a Braintree player running through. Remarkably, the official only showed a yellow card - another referee on another day would have seen the correct outcome. Pitt, who is now struggling to get players fit for Easter Monday's home game against relegation-haunted Dagenham and Redbridge, remains buoyant that his Braintree players will respond and put in another sterling performance - kick-off is 3pm.
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