SOUTHEND United celebrated coming out of their transfer embargo with an exciting 3-2 triumph over Hartlepool on Saturday.

The Shrimpers came back from being 2-0 down at the break to dramatically claim all three points at Roots Hall.

And that made it a weekend to remember for manager Steve Tilson, who is now finally free to bolster his small squad.

“The chairman has paid the money and it’s great news,” confirmed the Blues boss.

“If he hadn’t have done that we wouldn’t have been able to keep Sean Morrison on loan for longer, which we really needed to do.

“But that will all be sorted out very soon so it’s been a good couple of days for us.”

The Echo understands that the Shrimpers had been placed under a transfer embargo due to money owed to the Professional Footballers Association.

That has now been settled though and Southend made it a double dose of good news by making a return to winning ways against Hartlepool.

A victory did not look likely after 45 minutes but a header from Francis Laurent and a brace from top goalscorer Lee Barnard eventually secured a return to winning ways for Blues, who now sit 13th in the League One table.

And Tilson felt the final score was a fair reflection of the match.

“I thought we thoroughly deserved to win,” said Tilson.

“We dominated the game, even in the first half and they scored with the only two shots they had.

“There was no point in feeling sorry for ourselves and at half-time I just said to the players that we needed to be more clinical in their area.

“Thankfully they did and to score three times was just fantastic because, although it was a good performance, on another day we could certainly have lost and that would have made it four in a row.”

But, despite the run of three defeats ahead of the Hartlepool game, Tilson was never anxious about his team’s form.

“I wasn’t nervous because we played some good teams and had actually played quite well,” said Tilson.

“If we kept on producing performances like that I knew we would be OK and thankfully that’s the way it proved against Hartlepool.

“Now we want another good result at Exeter City on Saturday.”