SOUTHEND United chairman Justin Rees is confident the club’s football department will deliver success for the Shrimpers.

Blues boss Kevin Maher has been forced to overcome a number of issues since being appointed as head coach back in October 2021.

And Rees has been incredibly impressed by the work being done by Maher and the club’s head of football John Still since arriving at Roots Hall.

“They’re great guys and they’ve been in football, in different capacities, for a long time too,” said Rees.

“They work really well together and it’s not just those two.

“We’ve got really good staff around them in the coaching team plus medical and sport science departments too.

“We’re really pleased with the football set up we have and if you looked last year they did incredibly well to essentially finish fifth if you discard the 10 points deduction.”

But Rees is keen to ensure the consortium do all they can to help Maher and his staff.

“Our job in this system is to help them and hopefully we can live up to our role in the next couple of years,” said Rees.

“I think if we do give them the support they deserve then we’re going to do good stuff “We knew we had a really good platform to build on, not just in terms of performance but they really look after each other too and do things the right way.

“There’s a good team spirit and they’re good people.”

And that led to the consortium handing out new contracts as quickly as they could.

“One of their first things we did was to offer Kevin, Darren (Currie) and Mark (Bentley) new contracts and we knew they were the management team we wanted,” said Rees.

“They earned it with their loyalty but it was about more than that.

“We think they’re the right management team to get the best from the players and help us move up the leagues.”

Recruitment will be key where that is concerned.

But Rees stressed the consortium would not be getting too involved in that side of things.

“We want our football department to choose players and sign players,” said Rees.

“Our main role is to set frameworks and processes with the budget being the most obvious. Then we will empower the guys who know what they’re doing to go on and do that.

“That’s the overall strategy but we’re still pretty early into it so we’re still figuring out as a group what works for us and how to find that balance.”

But Rees is pleased with the patience being shown in tough times this season.

The positive thing is I’m glad we didn’t just panic buy,” he said.

“If you panic buy and get the wrong players on two or three year contracts it wouldn’t just be this year we’d be lamenting. We’d be hamstrung for next season and beyond. “

>Justin Rees was talking to the Luke Walsh Podcast which can be watched here