SOUTHEND United manager Mark Molesley has explained why he opted to make six changes to his starting line-up at Cheltenham Town.

Two of the alterations were enforced with Alex Bass and Elvis Bwomono both missing out with injuries.

But Molesley felt more changes were needed to keep the energy levels high.

“We have to freshen it up,” said the Blues boss.

“This League is brutal and unforgiving.

“You can’t keep going game, game, game.

“You’re risking injuries that way and we’ve got a strong squad now which we’ve shown here too.

“We’ve played one of the best teams in the League but that starting team more than matched them.

“We then felt with the changes we made we could get a bit of impetus but Cheltenham are very hard to break down.”

Molesley brought James Montgomery, Tyler Cordner, Greg Halford, Jason Demetriou, Ricky Holmes and Ashley Nathaniel-George into the starting line-up at Whaddon Road.