KEVIN Maher is keen to get rid of Southend United’s fear factor.

The Shrimpers new head coach will take charge for the first time when his team head to Dagenham & Redbridge on Saturday.

And Maher wants Blues, who sit 20th in the table, to be able to express themselves.

“I want to take the fear away from them,” said Maher.

“They’ve had a tough time recently and results haven’t been great but we want them to go on the pitch and enjoy their football.

“We will also encourage them to express themselves in the right areas.”

Maher, who has Darren Currie and Mark Bentley in his coaching team, took training for the first time since his appointment this afternoon.

And the 44-year-old was impressed by what he saw.

“It’s a good group,” said Maher.

“They’re good, honest players who want to do well for the club.

“It’s going to take time to get to where we want to be in terms of shape and formation but we’ll be giving them the structure we want and our principles will always be the same.”

Blues had been beaten in five of their last six league games prior to Maher’s appointment.

But Maher is looking forward to facing a Daggers side who are currently sixth in the National League standings after suffering a trio of successive league debuts.

“Dagenham are a solid side and I know their manager Daryl (McMahon) well,” said Maher.

“They will be well up for this and it will be a good game for us so we’re looking forward to it.

“It’s a tough game but we’ll look to take away the fear.

“We’ll fill them with a lot of positivity.

“We’ll get around them and get among them.”

Blues will have more than 1,000 fans at Victoria Road this weekend.

And Maher is keen for the supporters to play their part.

“We’ll bring a lot of fans and hopefully that will encourage the players as well,” said Maher.

“Hopefully the fans will spur them on too. It’s been a tough time the last three or four years and to change that will be hard, we know that. But we’ll give them every encouragement we can and give them something on the pitch. We need to bounce off each other.”