LEE Barnard may have rescued a point for Southend United on Saturday but he was still not happy.

The striker pounced to score his eighth goal in 10 starts for the Shrimpers to secure a 1-1 draw against Northampton Town at Roots Hall But the Billericay based 23-year-old was frustrated not to have gone on and won the game.

"It's really disappointing," admitted Barnard.

"We were very poor in the first half and didn't start anywhere near as well as we have done in the last few games.

"I don't know why that was but we were much better in the second half.

"The manager let us know he wasn't happy at half time and thankfully we equalised shortly after.

"But after that we had chances to win it and should have taken them."

Barnard did convert one of his chances which came after Charlie Mulgrew's free-kick had bounced back off the bar.

But he felt he should have done better with another opportunity that came his way.

"I should have scored another couple on top of the one I did get," he said.

"The one right at the end I snatched at and put wide which was disappointing but at least it's another game unbeaten for us."

The share of the spoils saw the Seasiders slip to fifth in the League One standings, nine points ahead of seventh-placed Walsall who also have a game in hand.

And Blues boss Steve Tilson therefore believes his team still need three more points to make sure of their place in the play-offs.

"It's up to us to get the win we need it and we obviously want to do it as quickly as we can," said the Seasiders chief.

"Walsall's games that they have left are all quite winnable from their point of view and you could definitely see them getting 12 out of 12 points, so that means we have to do the business.

"We're still in a good position though, we've lost one game in 16 so we must be doing something right but we need to keep it going."

Tilson also felt that Blues had done more than enough to beat a Northampton side who took the lead through Colin Larkin midway through the first half.

"They were better than us early on but they didn't have many chances and Darryl Flahavan didn't have many saves to make," he said.

"But in the second half James Walker hit the bar for us with a great effort and Adam Barrett was denied by a really good save from their keeper so we could definitely have won it."