THERE has been an awful lot of negativity surrounding Southend United and our recent form.

But for me there is two ways you can look at it.

Yes, we haven’t won in 11 league games and we’re not hiding that fact.

However, we’ve also lost once in our last four outings. We’ve had 160 crosses going in to the box during those games and we’ve had 67 shots.

That should point to us moving in the right direction but when you see we’ve scored five goals in our last six matches you know where the fundamental problem lies.

I think maybe we’ve lost that bit of quality in the final third and maybe that little of patience you need as well.

We’ve been working hard to try and bring in someone in loan to help improve us in that area, especially after Barry Corr’s red card.

But I have to say I’ve been left bitterly disappointed.

In the past two seasons at this football club two strikers have come here on loan and their careers have really taken off.

Britt Assombalonga, who was here last year, joined Peterborough for more than £1million and has scored nearly 30 goals already this season.

Cauley Woodrow is now playing in the Premier League with Fulham after being here earlier on in the campaign.

But there seems to be a number of players who are happy to sit on their hands on the bench or even the stands and have no real desire to be getting games.

It’s something a lot of clubs trying to find players have found, so it’s not just Southend, and it’s been a real eye opener for me.

It’s sad to say but some players are lacking ambition and are perfectly happy to just pick up their wages.

We’ve therefore not had any luck bringing anyone in yet and we’ve been knocked back by someone we had hoped to sign on loan.

But our investigations continue and we’re working as hard as we can to make something happen but if not we will go with what we have and those players will have another chance to impress.

We have two games coming up in quick succession and it’s a good chance to lift this doom and gloom.

BARRY CORR'S RED CARD LEFT ME DISAPPOINTED, FOR MORE THAN ONE REASON

WE will be missing Barry Corr tomorrow night as he begins a three match suspension and everything about the red card he got against Bury disappoints me.

First of all, I know Barry was at fault and I’ve dealt with that in house.

There was a definite forward movement of his head and, in this day and age, it’s a red card.

But for their defender to go down because of it is just embarrassing.

It’s something that really annoys me and I rang up Bury’s manager, David Flitcroft, to talk about it.

The lad (Frederic Veseli) is on loan from Ipswich Town so I rang their manager, Mick McCarthy as well.

All three of us played the game in the right way and we’re very honest.

I think some kind of precedent needs to be set for retrospective punishment when players dive and feign injury.

When you see it, it’s just astounding that he’s gone down and even his own defender goes over Pablo Mills goes over to tell him to get up.

I would feel the same way if it was one of my players that went down like that too and it’s something that needs to be dealt with.