npower League 2

Southend 2 United 1

Bucks was in a realistic mood after United's 100% league record fell at Southend with a 2-1 defeat: ''Of course we are disappointed to have lost, I thought second half we did come back into the game strongly and probably should have come away with something at the end. We didn't start the match well and in fairness to Southend they were bright and on the front foot and we found ourselves a couple of goals behind. They were great strikes, along with the one at Port Vale we have now conceded three very good goals which you can't do much about.

United will have completed over 1,200 miles by the time they get home on Saturday night but Paul was gracious in defeat and full of praise for his players' efforts: ''Credit must go to Southend for the way they started the game but come the end of the second half they were hanging on for dear life and we are disappointed we didn't get anything out of the game. Sometimes you don't start matches in the manner you want to and you can look for excuses but we have been on a tough run of three away games. The players have given me everything and never gave up today, this isn't an easy place to come to at the end of a tough week and if we can play the way we did in the second half people can see why we are where we are in the league because we did have Southend on the rack.

''We had some good chances; we hit the crossbar twice and really should have scored more than one goal. It was particularly disappointing to concede just before the break but it was a great finish and at that point we did deserve to be behind because we weren't on the front foot. We weren't our normal selves but we regrouped at half-time and gave a much better account of ourselves. It is an old cliché but it was a game of two halves and come the end I really believe we deserved something for our efforts.

''Nicky (Wroe) has missed one at the end, Mark (Ellis) has hit the side netting and I felt that we were going to score again because by that stage we were looking very dangerous, we were changing our shape to 3-4-3 and giving Southend a lot of problems. It wasn't our day today but if we keep that second half standard up we shouldn't have many problems this season.''