Pot of gold lures Latics

Photo: PICTURES by Alan Howarth

HIGH FLIER: Athletic substitute Matt Smith leaps to avoid a sliding tackle.

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SOUTHEND 1, ATHLETIC 1
WHEN tasked with taking on the same opposition in eight days’ time, Athletic will be left with not a sliver of doubt as to what they have to do to land that massive away-day at Liverpool.

If this were a boxing match, the towel wouldn’t have been thrown in by the home side. Southend are too battle-hardened and full of brio for that, after a previous run of 16 matches without defeat.

The npower League Two leaders would, though, have been faced with the prospect of needing to wind up for one very telling blow to avoid a points defeat.

A goal to the good thanks to James Wesolowski’s searing first-time drive, up to the point that tricky winger Ryan Hall lifted the ball over a retreating Alex Cisak, the visitors held calm authority in the Roots Hall bear-pit.

After that? Cisak was kept far too busy for Athletic boss Paul Dickov’s liking.

Control that had once been marked by clever interceptions, smart movement and ball retention disappeared as Southend monopolised possession and mounted wave after wave of attacking pressure.

The Australian stopper was a busy man and had to make two excellent saves to prevent his goal from being breached for a second time, once flying to his right to push away a free-kick from Hall and in injury time leaping the other way to claw out a Bliel Mohsni header.

Athletic had the better of the first three-quarters of this game. That is not enough to guarantee success, as the team have already found to their cost this season.

Replication of the majority of this performance is what is needed now in the Boundary Park replay, in order to land passage to the third round of the cup and its jackpot prize of a game at Anfield.

Wesolowski’s piledriver apart – it was the former Leicester and Peterborough man’s fourth goal of the season – two of the main talking points from an Athletic viewpoint revolved around leniency, on behalf of both referee David Webb and striker Shefki Kuqi.

Powerful Mohsni had a pair of headed goals disallowed; one for a blatant push, the other on the raising of a flag to signal offside.

The fact he was on the pitch to force the latter decision was an affront to Athletic manager Paul Dickov.

The tall, strong-of-build French midfielder had already piled into centre-back Zander Diamond, forcing him to hobble off the field, when he launched a second attack by arriving late in a diving challenge on Paul Black.

Both incidents were worthy of cards, but only on the first occasion was the yellow rectangle plucked from his pocket by Webb.

“Because it's me I think the referees are more likely to show me yellow cards,” household name Mohsni told the Southend Echo after gaining an eighth caution of the campaign.

Kuqi also showed a softer side. Again showing off his strong work ethic, the 12-goal forward raced through on goal after intercepting a stray pass from centre-back Mark Phillips. Stepping around goalkeeper Luke Daniels and faced with one retreating defender desperately trying to cover the gaping goal, Kuqi hesitated, lost his cool and plonked the ball weakly and wastefully into the side-netting.

Athletic started the game making one change, with hamstring victim Chris Taylor replaced by Tom Adeyemi on the right of midfield.

From the off, Athletic gave as good as they got as tackles rained down in all areas of the field, forcing referee Webb to regularly punctuate the action with the sound of his whistle.

Nathan Clarke was as stout and quietly effective as usual when replacing the injured Diamond, while at the other end Luca Scapuzzi found pockets of space and tested Daniels with a shot from a tight angle early on as Athletic broke forward at pace.

After Mohsni was adjudged to have pushed off Clarke to head home a cross from former Arsenal trainee Sean Clohessy, Wesolowski’s goal came when Daniels could only push a Scapuzzi drive away to his right and back into play. Kuqi retrieved the ball and fed it to the edge of the area for a booming finish.

The start to the second half was delayed as fourth official Wes Linden took to run the line in place of an injured assistant referee.

Furman almost doubled the visitors’ lead on the hour when crashing the ball against the crossbar from 15 yards off a Kuqi pass.

But when Cisak fluffed his left-footed clearance after racing from his penalty area, allowing Hall to plonk the ball over him and the retreating Clarke from 30 yards out, Southend cranked up the pressure. On the ropes, Athletic held out to earn a rematch.