Tilson: Big ask for us to survive

Published: 14 Mar 2010 - 14:47:15

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The Shrimpers went into the game having sacked assistant boss Paul Brush, replacing him with David Webb, and being given until April 14 to pay a disputed tax bill following a High Court appearance on Wednesday. And the result stretched Southend's winless run to 11 games, two more than the Grecians, while their fans protested in the car park after the game and called for chairman Ron Martin to stand down. "It's going to be tough to avoid the drop. We have 11 games left, six at home and five away, and we need five wins and a couple of draws from that. It's a big ask," Tilson said. "Everyone knows we've got an embargo and can't get anyone in. It's not easy and we have to keep encouraging the players that we have." He added: "We had a couple of half-chances. If we'd got the breaks and gone one up we might have held on. I'm disappointed not to have put the ball in the net but when you only have two or three strikers and your top scorer is on three goals you can't expect to score a lot of goals. "That's why we are where we are, but the positive was that we kept a clean sheet - the first one for a while."