'There's so much going wrong at Orient at the moment it's hard to pinpoint what the cause is' - That's how the saying goes.
But it's actually quite simple where to appoint the blame. Fabio Liverani.
Yeah you might harp on about how Slade brought in a few pensioners, dodgy keepers, engineered a move to Cardiff and f*cked us all up but that was something like 30 games ago. Liverani has had about 20 games to weigh up the squad and sort something out.
But he hasn't. What he has managed to do is coach the best parts out of arguably our best player (Cox), sent the only striker we have that can hold the ball out on loan to Stevenage (Lisbie) and probably the most cardinal sin to disrupt any harmony left in the camp, play loan players ahead of your own squad players.
By the way.. What has happened to Omozusi and Batt?
There's no tactics, no game plan, and when we do actually put in a performance it's more through luck than judgement. A broken clock is accurate twice a day.
The simple fact that we played the most form team in Barnsley off the park and have just spent 90 minutes playing in Crawley's half goes to show that the players we have are definitely of league one quality (at least), we just lack a decent manager and coaching team.
We've all said it this season. A decent manager would easily have this team in the play-offs. Other league one teams must look at ours in envy. Cox, Vincelot, McAnuff, Simpson, Dossena, Cuthbert, Lisbie, Dagnall. They would all walk into pretty much any other league one team.
Having said all that, my rant is borne out of frustration of today's match against Crawley.
Now Crawley are crap. Absolute dire. Not quite as bad as Yeovil and probably on par with Colchester. A similar level of players to Gillingham, Port Vale, Walsall, Oldham and Notts County. They also lack a decent manager, but have one who is better than ours in Dean Saunders just by his knowledge of sh1t Lower League English football. You can probably say the same about the other clubs too.
Before i tear the team apart i'll exclude Cisak the keeper because he didn't touch the ball all game and the defence for pretty much the same reason. Also Marvin Bartley who actually drove the team forward today which is something that has been lacking since Dawson went to Barnsley. For the record Bartley in my opinion played very well. I expect him to not make the bench next week and probably next appear as a sub for the last two games as part of our Italian's masterplan.
Josh Wright - I wrote a blog earlier this season about the central midfield. This is just an extension of that. Yep the boy can pass and he can definitely keep things ticking over, but who is he passing to? If you have no movement he'll look like a crab just going side to side.We all slaughtered Jack Price and Lundstram in the same way. Lloyd James too in his first season at the O's. He'll only be as good s those around him. So when we smash teams he'll look great, when we get dominated he'll look crap.
Dean Cox - He don't even look 10% of the player he can be. Whatever they're coaching him or telling him what to do, it's not working. Cox is regarded as one of the best in this division, not just once, but regularly, by numerous people. Yeah we know he's a sulking little sod and you probably lose a bit of something having him in your team, but you gain a lot more. The point with Cox is that if you ain't playing him, sell him.
O'Neill & Hedges - Pair of them didn't look interested. And this griped me a lot. We're dropping two of our own players to play this loanee pair. Slade used to get stick for not playing loanees over 'own' players, but if you want the squad pulling together get your own players in. The pair of them constantly shirked tackles and didn't give it the full 100% because this relegation battle doesn't matter to them. Omozusi would fly in, Batt gives it his all, McAnuff has started to pull his finger out.
Dagnall - He gave it his all as ever and it's no surprise that when Bartley broke forward, Wright could pull more strings, Dagnall had more space to run into and we were creating chances in the first half.
Henderson - Got plenty of stick from the away support for not winning a single header all match or even really putting himself about. A fella of his stature shouldn't be in the pockets of defenders.
Subs - Throw a hat over Mooney, Simpson and McAnuff. None of them had any impact, the subs were made at the wrong time and for the most part it all got baffling when Bartley went off. Mooney was playing in central midfield and Cuthbert had a spell as a striker.
Yep. Fabio is throwing shit up the wall to see what sticks.
Statistics - They can lie. Yep we dominate the game, had loads of the ball, double the attempts of target, loads of running, blah, blah.. and all that nonsense. One statistic that you might come across is that we probably put in about 70-odd crosses. And we did. So why didn't we score? Because not one cross was put in with conviction. Not one from the by-line. NOT ONCE DID A WINGER OR FULL-BACK GET PAST THEIR LAST MAN AND PUT A CROSS IN. NOT ONCE. Every cross was from deep. Practically the half-way line. In fairness to Henderson, who took the brunt of the criticism, what the funk can he do with a ball that's dollied into him from the half-way line? He wants a winger to beat a man and smash one across the face of goal. So i do feel a bit sorry for him.
My last rant is about that poxy corner-kick routine: Two players run over to take the corner, Wright taps it to Hedges who taps it back. Wright passes it back to O'Neill who's nearly back on the halfway line, who plops a floater into the box. I kid you not, it didn't work the first time, it didn't work the 18th time, i probably ain't gonna work all night. I don't knowwhats worse, the fact we perservered with it, or Crawley couldn't work it out. Or could they work it out and they just let us faff about with it.
Rant over. Decent players, but sent out with no tactics, gameplan, shape, co-ordination or insight into who they're playing against.
Management failure. Sack the Italian management and get a proven British manager in. Holloway would be ideal, Steven Pressley. Basically anyone who can speak English, knows the players, can get a message across and motivate them for the last 9 matches. We've got the players, just no leadership.
