YORK City will be aiming to become the first visiting side to score a goal during more than eight hours of football at Southend United this weekend.

The Shrimpers have not conceded in five games on their own soil – a sequence that stretches back to a 2-1 FA Cup defeat to Chester in mid-November.

In fact, Phil Brown’s miserly back line have not allowed an opposition side to score more than once in a regular league game on their Essex turf since last February when Exeter were 3-2 winners.

Since then, 13 clean sheets have been kept in 21 home outings.

Indeed, only Chelsea have conceded fewer league goals in front of their own fans than Southend this season from the English game’s top five tiers with Jose Mourinho’s Premier League table-toppers shipping three times compared to Brown’s play-off hopefuls’ five.

Goals have, however, been scarce at both ends of the south-coast pitch.

The fifth-placed hosts will be hoping to avoid a fourth successive 0-0 stalemate at Roots Hall tomorrow and only the Minstermen and bottom-of-the-table Hartlepool, with ten, have netted fewer times on their own soil in Sky Bet League Two this season than Southend, who have mustered just 11 from 13 outings.

A total of 29 goals from 27 fixtures is the lowest return from teams in the division’s top ten although the club have rattled in five goals during their last two outings – victories at Oxford (3-2) and Portsmouth (2-1).

That improvement has been aided by Brown’s loan recruitment of 21-year-old frontmen Joe Pigott and Jake Cassidy from Charlton and Wolves respectively.

Pigott, who also enjoyed a spell at Newport earlier this season, scored in both of those wins, which have left Southend undefeated in seven games and with only one defeat from their last 13 fixtures.

Morecambe, meanwhile, were the last team to win a league game at Southend, triumphing 1-0 back on October 4.

The arrivals of Pigott and Cassidy has relegated six-goal, joint-leading marksman Barry Corr to the bench and the Irish centre forward will play no part against the Minstermen having been sent off after coming on as a substitute at Portsmouth.

Attacking 20-year-old midfielder Jack Payne, who has also netted six times this season, has lost his place in the first XI for the last two matches too.

Corr’s red card was the Shrimpers’ fourth in five games with the team rock bottom of League Two’s fair play table.

Two players will return from bans tomorrow but centre-back Cian Bolger, who has sat out the last four matches due to a second red card of the campaign, is not expected to dislodge on-loan Crystal Palace defender Jerome Binnon-Williams or 22-year-old Adam Thompson at the back.

Veteran 35-year-old defender Adam Barrett is also yet to make his second debut for the club due to a calf injury that has kept him sidelined since his move back to Roots Hall from AFC Wimbledon three weeks ago.

Mads Ibenfeldt is still ruled out as well with a broken foot, while Brown must decide whether to recall midfielder Gary Deegan following suspension.

His replacement Michael Timlin, however, was one of the visitors’ top performers at Pompey.

Ex-Southampton striker Lee Barnard is on his way back from an ankle injury that he suffered while out on loan at Stevenage in December but is unlikely to figure.

Southend (probable): Bentley, White, Thompson, Binnom-Williams, Coker, Worrall, Timlin, Leonard, Atkinson, Cassidy, Pigott.