New Southend United boss Alan Little was not too despondent after watching his first game in charge at Roots Hall end in a 1-0 Third Division defeat against Scunthorpe United last night.

Little, who kicked off his managerial career at Blues with an amazing 3-0 win at Leyton Orient on Saturday, tried to look on the bright side after Gareth Sheldon's first-half strike for the visitors brought Southend crashing back down to earth.

"It was disappointing to lose at home after the way we played at Orient on Saturday, but you can't always expect a replay performance straight away," he said.

"The players are very apprehensive at the moment and found the match very frustrating at times, but I'm sure these are problems which can be worked out.

"Although, I thought the lads showed enough endeavour to get something out of this game, but it wasn't to be our night."

Little, who succeeded former Seasiders chief Alvin Martin in the Roots Hall hotseat last Friday, admitted that his side had failed to hurt promotion-chasing Scunthorpe.

However, he promised to get to grips with the lowly Shrimpers' problems on the training ground this week.

"I've only been here a few days and in that time I've seen two games, which has given me some insight into what is going wrong with the team," he added.

"From what I've seen there are a few things that need changing to get us firing again and we can sort these problems out on the training pitch.

"At Orient we created six or seven good chances and scored three goals, but tonight we huffed and puffed against a strong, stubborn and direct side which we found hard to break down.

"But we will resolve our problems together by getting down to work in training this week."

Little also said he was looking forward to meeting the fringe players at the club and discovering if they have a role to play in Southend's survival battle.

"I've watched and assessed the same players in two first team games, now I need to find out more about the other professionals at this club," he said.

"We have a very big squad at Southend and it just might be that there are players I don't know yet who can come into the first team and strengthen the areas we need to improve in."

Little finished by underlining the importance of Southend's ability to pick themselves up quickly and pick up some desperately-needed league points.

"The most important things is that this club stays in the Football League, which is what we must all strive for," he said.

"At the moment we have a nine-point cushion on the bottom club Hartlepool which is nice, but things can soon change, although I'm confident we will stay up."

Mark Beard - gave his usual whole-hearted performance for Southend last night

Picture: STEPHEN LLOYD

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