SOUTHEND United boss Kevin Maher says he is ‘hurting more than you can believe’ following his side’s 1-0 defeat at Dorking Wanderers.

Blues have now been beaten in their last seven National League games.

And Maher wants to see more character from his side.

“We need to show some heart, character and balls.” said Maher.

“We’ve got good players but good players are no good without heart and desire to go and win football matches.

“It’s not good enough and personally it’s hurting more than you can believe.

“I’ve got to get success and at the minute it’s not happening.”

Seb Bowerman scored the only goal of the game for Dorking on the half hour mark.

And Maher has demanded players show they want to be part of the club’s future.

“We’ve got to find out who is coming with us,” said Maher.

“We’ve got players here who if they want to be here have got to show.

“We’ve let ourselves down the last seven games, absolutely.

“But this is a brilliant football club with a brilliant following.

“If you want to be here you’ve got to start showing and that’s all of us.”

And Maher also felt he made mistakes against Dorking.

“It’s not good enough and in the first half I got it wrong,” said Maher.

“We got done by one ball over the top we haven’t dealt with.

“We tried to play nice football rather than playing forward quicker.

“It was too safe and too sideways.

“We should’ve dropped it off the back of them and played in their half.

“But we were too safe and maybe it’s a lack of confidence because you’re losing games.

“We had a go in the second half when we changed it a bit but it wasn’t good enough.

“We came off the structure too much and we didn’t do enough in terms of getting to their goal.”

As a result, Southend have now failed to score in five of their last seven matches – something which Maher is fully aware of.

“We haven’t scored anywhere near enough goals,” said the Blues boss.

“We haven’t asked enough questions here either, especially in the first half.

“We had a go in the second half.

“Bents (Jon Benton) has come on and had three or four shots straight away.

“But there’s nowhere near enough attacking threat.

“With that, then you’re under pressure to keep clean sheets which we haven’t done recently either.”

However, Maher did feel the Shrimpers should have been awarded a penalty in stoppage time following a challenge on Callum Powell.

“The one on Powelly is stonewall,” said Maher.

“I’ve watched it back and the defender’s trailing leg has caught him.

“Quite how he sees it as a free-kick to Dorking I have no idea.

“It should’ve been a penalty but that’s not the reason we’ve lost.”

But Maher is already focusing on Saturday’s trip to Yeovil Town and getting back to winning ways.

“We have to,” said Maher.

“Our season is now rapidly falling away and we’ve let that happen when we’ve been brilliant all season.

“We’ve got to have a similar response to what happened before.

“We’re live on TV on Saturday too and we can’t serve up something like that first half because it wasn’t good enough.

“They’ve got to react and show enough.”

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