Carlisle 2-1 Southend United

Southend United dropped into the League One relegation zone after their third consecutive league defeat.

The return leg of the 630-mile round trip will seem like a lifetime to the hardy Blues fans who trudged up to Brunton Park in some terrible weather conditions, and will face similiar problems coming back south.

Southend started well and took the lead through debutant Dougie Freedman after 22 minutes.

But the Blues - playing in red today - could not hold on and collapsed yet again in the second period. On 63 Peter Clarke was adjudged to have brought down Danny Livesey in the box and up stepped Danny Graham to fire the penalty past Steve Mildenhall.

And with just 11 minutes to go the home side went ahead when Cleveland Taylor slammed in a 6-yard effort.

The Shrimpers drop into 22nd place in the table and although only 5 league games have been played, these are already worrying times for Steve Tilson's men. Southend have only won once in all competitions so far this season, and the club crashed out of the Carling Cup and Johnstone's Paint Trophy at the first hurdle.

The defeat brings to an end a rocky week for the Roots Hall outfit. 7 days ago they were thrashed 5-2 by Walsall, only to suffer a 4-2 humilation at home to Leyton Orient in the JPT on Tuesday night. During that game sections of the home support voiced their displeasure at the performance and most fans booed the team off. Today's defeat at Brunton Park will rub salt into the wounds and the Blues need to gather themselves for next week's home match against Hereford. If not, the dissatisfaction will grow stronger and the team may just find themselves in a rut they struggle to get out of all season.