United’s first home league fixture kicks off at 1pm tomorrow with the Blues hosting the Shrimpers on the magnificent Brunton Park surface.
Speaking about the game, Chris Beech said: “Southend will come here feeling energised, and they’ll be trying their best to get direction themselves.
“Their club is under more pressure than ours in terms of finance. You read and listen about a possible debt and what that could mean, and we’re hearing that they’ve been given until October to deal with that.
“Those things generally change anyway, they get extended time or different things happen. In terms of a football team – they’re professional football players that have been hurt last week and I imagine they’ve been working very hard to respond to that.
“They might look to do something different. I read yesterday that they’re looking at players who are out of contract, so they might sign three by Friday, we just don’t know. What I do know is that whoever they sign, or whatever they do, we just have to look after ourselves.”
With the game kicking off two hours earlier than normal, he told us: “It doesn’t really make any difference.
“I’m happy we’ve agreed to it. It came about when the original fixture list came out. I like to work in a no-excuse environment, it is what it is, but why the heck we’ve got Southend away on Easter weekend I do not know. Do us a favour.
“If we were kicking off at 3pm away, the lads won’t get to bed until Saturday at 4 or 5am, and that day’s gone, you’ve lost a recovery day. We asked for a 1pm kick off to try and get in bed the same day.
“They asked if we would do the same for them and the club agreed to it. I did look at if we could have moved the Scunthorpe game to the Tuesday night, from a playing perspective that would be better, but from a club perspective, a Bank Holiday home game, hopefully we can have everybody back in the ground and we’re in a good place.”
“What we’re looking for is that three-point feeling we keep talking about,” he concluded. “It’s a great feeling, especially being able to share it with our supporters.
“I want to make sure we’re in that position and, to do that, we need to play well. The lads know that so, relax, and take on your opportunity.”
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