FORMER Southend United winger David Worrall finds it ‘absolutely crazy’ to see the Shrimpers struggling badly on and off the pitch this season.

Blues, who paid off a debt of close to £500,000 to HMRC earlier this week, sit bottom of the League Two table having not won so far this season.

And Worrall – who will be back at Roots Hall with Port Vale this weekend – is stunned by how things have unravelled for his old side.

“When I was at Southend I just never saw anything like this happening,” said Worrall, 30.

“It’s absolutely crazy to see it, especially with the fanbase there is there.

“My local side Bury went but when it happened you could maybe kind of see something like that happening at the time with everything that was happening but with Southend I could never have imagined this.

“Bury’s my team and I came through there.

“It’s my local team and it’s really tough what’s happened so to Southend having their own issues is horrible because I loved my time there.”

Worrall made 84 appearances during a two year spell with Blues which ended in 2016.

But he still looks back on his spell with the Shrimpers with great fondness.

“I loved it at Southend and that first season was probably my best in football,” said Worrall.

“It was topped off by the win at Wembley to get promotion and it was the most enjoyable season I’ve had so there are so many great memories.”

However, Worrall ended up moving on after falling out with then Blues boss Phil Brown.

“I said I wanted some time to think about a contract offer and then I wasn’t in the side and we didn’t really speak either.

“After a few months he brought me back in but we didn’t speak about it even then and I knew my time was over.”

Worrall spent a season with Millwall before joining Vale in 2017.

And the winger is now thriving with John Askey’s side.

“We’ve had a decent start to the season and I’m really enjoying my football again,” said Worrall, who was voted Vale’s player of the year last season.

“Last year we had some good form towards the end and we are trying to carry it on now.

“We’ve got a good little squad together and we’re all dead close too.

“It reminds me a lot of the Southend squad that first season I came.”

Vale sit seventh in the League Two standings.

And Worrall – who hit the winner against Cheltenham on Tuesday night – is keen to finish an already successful week on a high.

“We’ve had back to back wins and we want to come and finish the week off perfectly now.

“But we’ve spoken about it and we can’t look at Southend being bottom of the table and not having won.

“We’ve seen clips of them and I think they move the ball better than most Southend teams have in the past few years.

“They’re a young group but they will be hungry and one day it will click.

“We just have to make sure it’s not Saturday.”