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Penney praise for Piggott

Image: Dave Penney: Hails on-loan striker

Southend's assistant manager Dave Penney heaped praise on Joe Pigott after he scored both in goals in a 2-0 win against Cheltenham.

Pigott, who is with Southend on loan from Championship club Charlton Athletic, bagged a first-half brace to make it four goals in six games for his temporary club. And Penney was delighted by the youngster's latest contribution. "Joe's been great for us," said Penney. "He's struck up a good partnership with Jake Cassidy and they are causing teams problems. "At this moment in time Joe's getting the goals and it was nice to see him get another couple. "All you can do is pick up three points and that's exactly what we've done. "We were comfortable and probably took our foot off the pedal a little bit instead of going for the jugular. "But that's human nature and we've also made up a little bit of ground on the teams above us." The victory, which was Southend's first league triumph on a Tuesday night at Roots Hall since September 2011, pushed the Shrimpers up to fourth in the League Two table. They now sit just two points below the automatic promotion places. And they never looked liked being troubled by the Robins. Pigott opened the scoring after just nine minutes when he fired home from close range after Cassidy's close-range header from John White's right-wing cross had been parried out by Cheltenham goalkeeper Trevor Carson. The Shrimpers doubled their lead in the 34th minute when Pigott superbly headed a left-wing free-kick from Ben Coker in to the bottom left-hand corner of the net. Southend captain John White headed Coker's right-wing corner against the left post on the stroke of half-time. However, the Shrimpers rarely threatened after the break and it was Cheltenham who came closest to scoring with a header from Matt Taylor which was cleared off the line by Michael Timlin. That made sure of another defeat for the 22nd-placed Robins. Their loyal contingent of 49 travelling fans chanted for the dismissal of manager Paul Buckle, who has now triumphed just once in 12 games since taking over. But Buckle insisted he would not be shying away from the situation. "It's very hard to take at the moment but the overall performance wasn't that bad and the effort was certainly there," said Buckle. "The players have been very honest in the dressing room and we need to work our socks off to stop these mistakes that keep on happening. "We're not under severe pressure in the games, we just find it hard to concentrate and we keep on giving away bad goals which we couldn't afford to do."

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