Southend United fans were finally given the news they had been waiting for, with the club announcing former England international defender Sol Campbell as their new manager earlier this week, after a long drawn out process since Kevin Bond's resignation from the post.

Sol Campbell's appointment will be seen as a largely positive move by the Roots Hall faithful, with the ex-Arsenal man having previously done a great job at Macclesfield Town to keep the Silkmen in League Two last season after a turbulent campaign.

With an average of 1.23 points per game during his tenure at Moss Rose the former Tottenham Hotspur player showed he can work well when constricted to a small scale budget, with Macclesfield's financial issues having been well documented over the last few years.

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Campbell takes over a Southend side who are currently sitting in 22nd place of the League One table, meaning he has a mammoth of a job to turn things around at the Essex based club.

Here, we take a look at THREE concerning trends that the 45-year-old has to address at Southend....

Weak backline

Southend's most obvious concern is the amount of goals that they have shipped already this season, with the Shrimpers having conceded an astonishing 40 goals already, meaning they unsurprisingly have the worst defence in the league.

Given Campbell played the majority of his career at centre half, you would like to think that the former defender will be best placed to tighten up his new side's leaky backline, particularly with their goal difference making for awful reading at present.

Lack of scoring touch

Another clear issue for the Essex based club is their goal scoring exploits, with the Blues having only netted 15 times this season, thus putting them amongst the lowest scorers in the third division this term, a factor that simply must be addressed if they are to stay in the division.

Campbell should look to work on chance creation, as it is clear that Southend have not been creative enough in the final third this term, thus leading to a rapid decline in the amount of goals being scored at Roots Hall, with the likes of Simon Cox having found the net just twice in 13 games.

Game management

Lastly, Campbell should look to work on his new side's game management skills, with the Shrimpers having been guilty of giving away the lead in recent games against Tranmere and Doncaster Rovers, thus leading to a significant amount of crucial points being dropped.

Southend clearly need to work on the way that they keep possession of the ball to address this, with the Blues having averaged just 47.7% of the ball in their games so far this campaign, indicating that they must work on holding onto the ball when in winning positions, as this will in theory help to see positive results through to the end.