Mark Patterson is looking forward to adding some desperately needed steel to Southend United's lightweight midfield at Rochdale tonight.

Blues, who will be under player/coach Mick Gooding's supervision following former boss Alvin Martin's resignation last Friday, travel to Lancashire for another crunch Third Division encounter.

The Shrimpers are sitting perilously close to the Conference trapdoor -- only six points separate them from bottom club Scarborough - and tonight will be another dogfight as Rochdale are only a point above Blues.

However, Patterson, who will be making his second Blues debut at Spotland following a deadline day move from Bury, is confident Southend can steer themselves away from trouble.

"It will be a tough match," admitted the gritty 33-year-old, who played four league games for the Seasiders on loan from Sheffield United two seasons ago.

"Both teams need the points and it's up to us to take the game to Rochdale and turn them over.

"If we play with our hearts on our sleeves and graft as hard as we can then I'm confident we can get a good result."

Patterson, who has joined Blues on a free transfer until the end of the current campaign, believes he can add the missing bite to Southend's midfield.

"I've come back to Southend to get my foot in, make some tackles, and do a good job to get this club out of its current situation," he explained.

"I enjoyed my short time at Roots Hall before and I was only too happy to come back south and help Southend out again.

"From what I've seen Southend have got a good squad of players, but they need an older head like myself in midfield to organise them and get them going - which is what I intend to do."

Blues' caretaker manager Gooding said he wanted to see his players work harder to achieve their first win away from home of 1999 tonight.

"We need to get some points on the board quickly because we are too near the bottom of the league for comfort," he said.

"I want to see a determined, hard working performance from my players at Rochdale, which doesn't necessarily have to be pretty, but I want to see us get a result."

However, Gooding wouldn't comment on his own hopes of landing the managerial vacancy at Roots Hall full-time.

"All I'm thinking about is tonight's game and picking up three points to move us up the table," he said.

Defenders Rob Newman and Mark Beard miss tonight's 7.30pm match through one-game bans. Midfielder Kevin Maher is out with a groin strain.

Southend (from): Capleton, Booty, Burns, Morley, Roget, Coleman, Unger, Patterson, Conlon, Campbell, Hodges, McGavin, Houghton, Fitzpatrick, Roach, Livett, Margetson.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.