The Honeymoon Period

As the ink has started to dry on the transfer of ownership forms from Francesco Becchetti to Nigel Travis and Kent Teague it's got me thinking about what, as a fan, I would like to see happen at the O's once the honeymoon period is over.

The first two weeks have been nothing short of fantastic for an O's fan. In one swoop the new regime have seemingly sweeped away all the bad of the last three years and replaced it with nothing but good news.

But what would you like to see? How would you like them to perform? Here are my five things that I would love to see the new owners take on board (in no particular order) and then in a bit more detail further down the page.

1. Look forward, don't look back
2. Don't be reactionary, take time to get things right
3. Community, don't treat fans as customers
4. Honesty and integrity are important, we'll work with you
5. Be different

Our history is important, but not as important as the one we are currently creating. It does look like we've bypassed the last three years and cherry-picked what was good with the club and re-instated / welcomed them back to the club. Nothing wrong with that at all, but let's not try to re-create something that WAS good. Let's make something that IS brilliant.

Becchetti's downfall was ego. If the fans called for the manager, he'd sack the manager to try to appease the fans. This was a vicious circle. The fans knew that a good rant would wind the owner up and put the manager at risk. This can't go on and it worries me that certain factions of the crowd might continue this behaviour looking for reactions. I've seldom seen protests at Brisbane Road and i'd like it nipped in the bud quite early on that smoke-bombs and pitch-invasions (whilst justified previously) isn't the way forward. Barry managed this quite well with his managers by setting parameters in which they could work and would only really be called to task if they fell short of his standards (relegation zone).

One thing Barry never really got right was having the fans on board. He was always a bit marmite, love him or hate him type. He also called us morons and didn't quite mock us for not having as much money available to bail us out each year than he did, but didn't fall far short of it. I liked Barry and his honesty but if the Nigel & Kent can tap into more than half of the supporter base we would really be going places. Fan on the board is a step in the right direction.

A plan! We've heard talk of a three year plan already and this is music to my ears. Orient fans won't care if we're slipping behind on the plan a bit, but just keep us informed of developments! Albeit not in a weird dictator style video while wearing a leather jacket with a yellow collar.

Be different. We're Orient, we're in the National League and for the most part we're out the spotlight now. Let's be different, let's be creative, let us not conform to the usual football stuff, let's do things differently, let's get our own identity.

Up the O's.

Leyton Orient End Of Season Awards 2016/17

It's been 5 managers since my last blog. Let's Go!

The Leyton Orient End of Season Awards for Season 16/17:

The 'Young Young Player of the Year' award sponsored by Cow & Gate Baby Milk: Steven Alzate for his performance against Hartlepool and then heading home on a BMX.

The 'Young Player of the Year' award sponsored by Pampers Training Pants: Sam Sargeant for playing a considerable amount of games in goal, just three years after learning to catch the ball.

The 'Old Young Player of the Year' award sponsored by Youngs Brewery: Paul McCallum for making it to 23 years of age and still being allowed to play.

The 'Saga Holidays Special Mention' award: Michael Collins for not pulling his hair out having to look after a bunch of youths.

The 'Gagliardi Special' award: Teddy Mezague for being the first defender that can't read a bounce. Ever.

The 'Jimmy Smith Disappearing Act' award: Sammy Moore. Where on Earth has he gone?

'Leyton Orient Supporters Club' player of the year award goes to Romain Vincelot.

The 'Adam Legzdins Great Escape' award goes to Ollie Palmer. Well played lad.

The 'Chairmans Manager of the Year' award: Andy Bitch Boy Hessenthaler.

The 'Vito Miceli Puppet' award: Ulrich N'Nomo for not doing much and picking up a wage.

The 'Angelieri, What The Fuck Am I Doing Here' award: Kennedy, Kelly, Massey, Parkes and Weir.

The 'Joshua Birtwistle are you really injured?' award: Yvan Erichot who hasn't been sure if he's been injured or not all season.

The 'Ollie Palmer, I Ain't Coming Back' award: Jordan Bowery.

The 'Jordan Bowery, He called Me A What?' award: Ollie Palmer.

The Board's 'Charisma' award goes to Alberto Cavasin.

Goal of the Year award goes to Jens Janse for his goal and performance in the face of adversity against Blackpool.

The 'Callum Kennedy Going Through The Motions' award: Andy 'Go on then i'll take the job because i'm waiting to hear from a better one' Edwards.

The 'Danny Edwards You Are Effing Tired' award goes to Alex Cisak.

Jack Skellington 'Nightmare Before Xmas' award goes to Nicky Hunt.

And finally the 'Omar Riza Effing Geezer' Stone Island jacket goes to Liam Kelly for pushing a ballboy over.

Post Apocalypse: Leyton Orient Managerial Stats 2014/15

That's it. We're relegated. I'm sure that we'll pore over the finer details in a few days time (i already have 3 blog posts drafted) but for the time being, here's some interesting managerial stats from this season (League Matches Only):

Mauro Milanese (Played: 5, Won: 1, Drew: 1, Lost: 3):
Our worst performing manager of the season.

If we extrapolated these results over a season we'd have been relegated with 37 points. Finishing in 24th place.

Kevin Nugent (Played: 6, Won: 1, Drew: 2, Lost: 3):
Not much better than Milanese but equally not worth getting excited about.

Taking these results over 46 matches we'd have finish in 24th again with 38 points.

Fabio Liverani (Played: 27, Won: 8, Drew: 6, Lost: 13):
This is where it starts to get interesting. Fabio's win % is the highest of any manager we've had this season. Unfortunately he just couldn't hold out for draws because his loss % is on par with Milanese & Nugent. Fabio also has the honour of conceding the most goals per game.

With Fabio's results extrapolated over the season, we'd have still been relegated, finishing in 21st position with 51 points.

Russell Slade (Played: 8, Won: 2, Drew: 4, Lost: 2):
Russell couldn't buy a win for love nor money at the start of the season and was given his ultimatum and duly left.

What Russell could do was hang in there with his results. We weren't getting beat often and the goal difference was neutral. His win % was lower than Liverani, but his loss % is by far the best of the other three managers this season.

Taking Russell's results over a season would've had us finishing in 15th place with 58 points.

Conclusion:
Using averages the only manager to have kept us up this season would've been Russell Slade.

Interestingly, Russell's career stats at Orient have him finishing each season on average with 70 points (P: 242, W:103, D:61, L:78) which is quite impressive for Orient. 70 points would've seen us in the play-offs.

Throw into the mix that historically Slade's teams got better over the course of the season makes sacking him, or giving him an ultimatum illogical and probably one of many catalyst for our dire season.

To rub salt into the wounds Slade has actually performed better at Cardiff than he did at the O's and is averaging 65 points over a 46 game season at Cardiff compared to his 58 points he would've achieved at Brisbane Road this season. This may indicate that he does improve over the course of a season.

So there you have it. Pick the bones out of all that.

The need for Darius Henderson and wingers.

When we played Crawley away, i thought that Henderson put in one of the worst performances i've seen from an O's player in recent years.

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.

I also wrote:

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.

So i  thought i'd look at Henderson's goals this season.

Not very surprisingly most of his goals come from a ball that has been whipped in and he's attacked it.

More surprisingly is that when Henderson is picked to start, we lump balls at him from deep. This makes him look clumsy, pedestrian and pretty useless. Like at Crawley.

It also smacks of a team that has run out of ideas and a coaching team with no actual idea. If i can figure it out why can't 'football' people.

Look at this clip of Darius Henderson scoring from the recent match against Crewe.

That's Marvin Bartley beating the last man and putting a cross in with conviction for Henderson to attack.

Now look at this clip of Darius Henderson scoring against Gillingham.

That's also Henderson attacking a cross-ball from Dagnall.

And again we've got Cuthbert beating the last man and whipping a ball in vs Swindon.

And a fine attacking header from Henderson.

Lovely ball in from McAnuff with pace at the back-post at Fleetwood.

Powerful header from Henderson.

There's a few others too where he hasn't powered in a header, but attacked the ball in front of him.

If i were in charge of the O's tomorrow i'd play with Dagnall and Henderson upfront, push McAnuff / Cox and Hedges / Batt right up the pitch trying to beat the last man and putting crosses in.

I'd also have Lloyd James in the middle trying to feed the ball into Dagnall's tireless running. Bartley can break up the play from the middle and drive forward if he gets the chance.

I'd go for consistency at the back with Clarke and Baudry in the middle, Cuthbert at right-back and Omozusi at left-back. They didn't do too bad for us in them positions last year.

Cisak in goal.

Though i fully expect another random selection from Liverani. He doesn't do himself any favours does he?

Going down.

'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.

12 Key questions for Fabio Liverani at the LOSC Meet the Manager Evening

Seeing as I've not been able to beg, steal, nor borrow a ticket for tomorrow nights shenanigans, instead I've compiled a list of questions that I'd like to hear answered.

If anyone going tomorrow would want to ask any of these questions, can provide Fabio's answer, or can write a report for this blog I'd be very much grateful to you.

Questions for Fabio:

1. As someone with no experience of British football, League One or Leyton Orient in particular. Why do you feel you were appointed Manager of Leyton Orient Football Club?
2. 90% of our squad has played at a level higher than League One. Why do you feel that you have struggled to get the team to perform?
3. Looking at your current statistics, Orient will finish the season with 48 points. In 11 of the last 12 seasons that sum of points will get you relegated. Have you plans for Orient in League Two for next season or do you expect to be fired if we are relegated?
4. Other new managers at similar clubs in League One have been the catalyst for better results, notably Mark Robins at Scunthorpe and Justin Edinburgh at Gillingham, this hasn't happened for you at Orient. Why do you think that this is? 
5. Can you elaborate on the scouting network in place now that Kevin Dearden has left the club?
6. What is the future transfer policy of Leyton Orient?
7. Who do you think is the best player in League One and also League Two, aside from any Orient player?
8. Will you be instructed to select the winner of the Agon Channel reality TV show based on Leyton Orient? What is your view on the calibre of contestants? Do you agree that picking a TV contestant will upset the harmony of the squad?
9. What role does Kevin Nugent have?
10. Is it correct that Rob Gagliardi, our goalkeeping coach, has never played higher than amateur football?
11. If so, will we be appointing a higher-level of goalkeeping coach as all 4 of our current goalies have played professional league football and one is a current international?
12. What is your preferred formation and style of play?

Central Midfield. Someone? Anyone?

Last year it was so simple.

Romain Vincelot ran around bossing the centre-circle, Lloyd James laying balls into Mooney's feet, Lisbie's chest or out to the wings where Cox and Odubajo were always available.

When we needed to be stronger Bartley could come in and harass teams and Lundstram more than adequately filled Lloyd James' boots when he was tiring towards the end of the season.

So how can all four players, who were superstars last season, now look like they've never kicked a ball in their life? Quite simply, tactics. Or a lack of them. This year we have no tactical plan due to having a fraud masquerading as manager.

John Lundstram
He looked good last year because he could spray the ball around knowing where Cox and Odubajo would run to. Why did they know where to run to? Because their supporting full-backs would create space for them. When they made their run, they in turn would create space for the strikers. And then we would score goals.

This year he looks rubbish and looks like he couldn't pass wind. He hasn't become a bad player overnight. We just have no tactics.

Has just been sent back to his parent club.

Jack Price
When at Orient earlier this year he moved the ball from side-to-side aimlessly. Fans were split on him being a half-decent kid, or more league two fodder.

He's gone back to playing at Wolves in the Championship were he can pass the ball wide to Henry or Sako and now looks a world-beater.

Josh Wright
Pretty much the same mould as Price, much maligned for not passing the ball forward, but who to? The players aren't being instructed to make certain runs, or hit certain areas. Some fans can see this, some think Wright is a pretty-boy who should be playing Conference level at the highest.

Simply put, he hasn't anyone to offload the ball to.

Romain Vincelot
The ever industrious Frenchman just doesn't stop running. This year he looks like a headless chicken, last year he had purpose. That's right, it's down to tactics again and certain areas to attack and defend.

How do we solve this?
We appoint a real manager, a tactically aware one, one that knows the players, can communicate with the  players and has a general idea of what he's doing.

How Leyton Orient fell from top to bottom

25th May 2014 - Chris Dagnall misses the spot-kick that promotes Rotherham to the Championship after a nail-biting thriller of a League One Play-Off Final.

7th February 2015 - Yeovil Town beat relegation rivals Crawley Town, to send the same O's team (minus Odubajo) to the bottom of League One.

Let that sink in for a moment. The EXACT same team that performed heroics and re-wrote the record books last season, have just hit rock-bottom.

A lot has happened in 37 weeks (258 Days to be precise). Pretty much all of it can be blamed on Francesco Becchetti's new regime. Allow me to explain over the course of this lengthy blog entry.

First off, the one thing that can't be blamed on the new regime is that Moses Odubajo was sold to last-seasons rivals Brentford. That was down to Hearn / Matchroom / Slade. For the record i think a million pound was an absolute steal for Brentford and if he had to go, the form he was in, I'd have thought upward of £2.5m would have been realistic.

Secondly, Barry Hearn seems to have found an owner that is willing to pump money into the cause. How he's gone about it we'll discuss, but nobody can say he hasn't thrown money at it.

There are currently two schools of thought about the plight of the O's:

1. It's clearly all down to the players. They've now failed under four managers.
2. The way the club is run is in such a state nobody really understands what's going on anymore.

Personally I'm 100% behind the latter theory and with a couple of shrewd appointments (more about why this won't happen later..) this team could easily be competing in the play-offs (not now though because it's too late).

How it all went wrong:

Appointing a  Sporting Director.

This was an absolutely nonsense position to create that made no sense when it happened and still doesn't now. Nobody really understands why Mauro Milanese was brought in and what he actually added to the club.

It basically undermined Russell Slade's position and ultimately made it untenable for him to carry on as Manager.

Milanese has now been relieved of all his positions at the O's. Probably because he acted as an agent and a Sporting Director in some of the transfer deals.

Giving the players a pay-rise / signings players on a fortune.

By all accounts the first thing that the new regime arranged was to increase all contracts at the club by 20-25% after last season heroics and to spend big.

Step forward Jay Simpson, Darius Henderson & Jobi McAnuff. If rumour is to be believed their combined salary is £20k a week. Are they good players? Yes they are. Did they want to play for Russell Slade? Yes they did. Are they now lumbered at a club in turmoil? Yes they are.

Giving Russell Slade an ultimatum / then sacking him / then refusing to let him go / etc.

Did Russell engineer a move away from the O's? Probably. Would you blame him? No. If your new employees who from the offset didn't want you in charge gave you an escape clause would you take it? Yes you would.

The bottom line is that Russell Slade was the best manager we've had in 30 years, is highly regarded in the game, was voted manager of the year last season, had the contacts when strings needed to be pulled and as a League One club, was about as good a manager as we could have asked for. He remains the most successful of a four 'managers' we've had this season.

Waving goodbye to Matt Porter.

Hugely knowledgeable ex-CEO of Leyton Orient should have been given the chance to ease the new owners into it. As it turns out he was thrown out the club after 86 days of the new regime.

Nothing wrong with having your own people in, just let the old people help out with the transition.

Things as simple as paying the Sky TV bill that hadn't been paid the other day or when the players salaries had been missed. The signing off of employment contracts. The approval of the referral cheques. The minutes from the fans forum. The list is endless.

New CEO & Sporting Director talking to fans on the train.

It's not the brightest of things to be doing. Spilling the beans to fans before and after matches, telling them about future plans. These things should be kept in-house.

Appointing Kevin Nugent as Caretaker, then Manager, then Coach, then Interim, then sacking him.

Nobody will ever know why Nugent claimed that he was the manager, but Milanese was telling people on trains he was the caretaker, then it all got changed round again and Nuge claimed he wasn't the manager but would be soon. Then he finally emerged as Interim Manager. Nobody seems to have known what happened and ultimately it was all a load of bull because as soon as Russell Slade left, Mauro Milanese was picking the team. How do i know this? Because after Russell Slade left, the dressing room was lost to the new owners and all the structure previously put in place had collapsed.

Sacking Nugent and replacing him Mauro Milanese as Manager.

Another nonsense managerial appointment as Milanese was out of his depth, nobody liked him, nobody really understood him and nobody wanted him there.

Believe it or not, the O's currently have a strong team with some loud voices in it. They can spot a fraud a mile away, just like any of us can in our own field of business. They knew what Milanese was able to bring to the table. They didn't play for him when Nugent was the stooge, they weren't going to play for him now.

Sacking Milanese and not replacing him adequately.

This was it. This was when the owners could've made something happen. All they had to do was appoint someone with Football League experience. Someone who the players could believe in. They didn't. They replaced him with Fabio Liverani who had previously managed youth teams in Italy.

The appointment of Liverani was the final nail in the coffin and has relegated us. The short of it being, he has no experience in this league, no contacts in the UK, no kudos with the players and can't even seem to rouse them in the slightest.

Basically the players don't understand him or are even attempting to make it work. They sense another fraud and i agree with them. Speaking through an interpreter everything gets lost in translation. Whether its a rollocking or something tactical it all just gets lost.

All 3 managerial appointments have been poor.

Nugent, Milanese, Liverani. I'd even argue that you could call them Managers. None of them have or have had the pedigree for the job in hand.

The correct appointment would've been a Mark Robins or similar. Or if we are pushing the boat out, Brian McDermott or Neil Warnock to get us out this mess. The players would recognise these types as respected football people and play for them.

Unfortunately for us, the names mentioned above would probably speak to Russell Slade or the current crop of players beforehand who would warn them away.

Backroom Staff.

The entire backroom staff have been replaced except for Nugent who is now paid a fair whack to not really do much by all accounts.

Since Kevin Dearden has left, the scouting network has collapsed to such an extent that we haven't even been scouting our next opposition. This is particularly amateur and is almost single-handedly to blame for the recent deluge of set-pieces we've conceded from. All down to the fact that we have nobody out there scouting for us.

The new physio literally isn't a physio. He isn't qualified. Apparently this is getting grief from the authorities. Another extremely amateur mistake.

The new Goalkeeping coach doubles as the translator for Liverani in interviews, but more telling the highest level that he has played is amateur football. Which equates to an amateur ex-goalkeeper is training our two senior 'keepers and also our promising England U-18 starlet.

We've also appointed a fantastically titled 'First Team Liaison Manager' if anyone can help with that please let me know.

Transfers.

As has been mentioned above, as we now have no scouting network and a manager with no contacts in the British game, the only people we're able to sign are either desperate for a club (out of contract like Josh Wright, Plasmati), returning from injury (Neal Eardley, Jack Price), or young and inexperienced (Lundstram, Hedges).

All those mentioned above are regularly debated about who was responsible for signing each of them. That speaks volumes in itself.

Let's not even talk about Baudry training with Peterborough for a week, then told to come back, then told he's going out on loan, then not being for sale at any price. Poor sod.

Ask yourself if you'd join Orient at the moment. A manager you can't understand and a whole heap of backroom staff that don't really do much or know what they're doing.

Dossena.

Earns £20k a week. Nobody has admitted to signing him. According to newspaper reports, we didn't even scout him, he just sort of turned up and we started paying him. Hasn't been seen for a while.

The First Team.

Whilst i don't think they've covered themselves in glory of late, i find it hard to put the blame at their door. As a defender you're told to mark a certain man, hold a high line, drop back, play offside.. Or a forward is told to run into certain spaces, put someone on their weaker-foot, etc. Even midfielders are given instructions about playing deep, pushing up, hit the wings, go long.. but if we're not scouting any teams, the management haven't this information to give and we're getting picked off. Week after week. And the management don't know how to counter it. It is so obvious that we've not done any research on teams.

Injuries.

In my opinion, half of our injured players aren't injured at all, they're just swinging the lead and hoping for a transfer ASAP, to try and rid themselves of the bad management they've ended up with.

We've all had crap jobs, where we've wanted to leave. Amazingly 258 days after being at Wembley, being at the O's is a crap job.

A British manager, one that understands the psyche, could sort this out immediately.

We need to talk about Dean Cox

Dean Cox should leave Leyton Orient. Pains me to say it, but he doesn't deserve what we've turned into with our numerous managers and non-existent game plans.

When pint-sized Cox signed for the O's on the 2nd June 2010, nobody would've imagined the impact that he would have had on the club over the next 4 years.

Consistently rated as one of the best players outside the Championship, scoring 40-odd goals in 200-odd games from midfield and that's not to mention his phenomenal assist ratio. One season in particular creating more assists than any other player in Europe (including Messrs Ronaldo, Messi, et al).

From the moment he walked through the doors at Brisbane Road he has been the model-professional who has lived and breathed the club in everything he does. Committing himself to the community projects, befriending the youth players coming through and always being open and honest with the supporters on social media and in person.

The only place i haven't seen him at Brisbane Road is in the supporters club with the fans and i can forgive him that because why would you stick around your place of work after your job has been done?

It's also fair to say that the right-footed left-winger formed one of the most potent attacking forces that I've ever seen at Brisbane Road in my 30-odd years of supporting. I don't think we'll ever forget the 2013/2014 season. Cox, Mooney, Lisbie and Odubajo will still be on the tips of our tongues for years to come.

Dean Cox cared for the O's. And so did this group of players. Nobody in that stadium deserved promotion more than Dean Cox.

So why do I want Cox to leave? I want him to prove himself in the Championship. I want him to go to his boyhood club, or link up with Slade again at Cardiff, basically i want him to do better than what we can offer him. He deserves it.

He owes nothing to this club of ours. We've had more than our tuppence from him and he would go to any club with my blessing. And i believe all Orient supporters feel the same way.

I don't want him to stagnate in this stinking cess-pit of a TV show and Italian-reality contest that Orient have become.

Where would he go?

The rumour-mill is rife that Cox is leaving in January. Having moved 'home' to Haywards Heath, the smart money would be on Brighton, where he served his apprenticeship. Or potentially Crawley (who have bid for him previously) to link up with his mate Jimmy Smith. It'd be gutting to think that a move to Crawley would be more appealing than Orient, but when you're being messed around by no-mark Italians anything is a possibility.

Of course we also need to think about the special relationship he has with Russell Slade at Cardiff. Slade understood Cox, knew what made him tick and built a lot of our play around him. I'm not too sure what Cardiff need in terms of personnel at the moment but Cox is a class act and gives his all. That's worth a lot more than a bundle of talent and a shitty attitude (read Ravel Morrison).

What does he bring to the team?

What sets Cox apart from most at this level is his control of the ball. Smash a ball to him at point-blank range and he'll control it. In an instant. Fizz a ball out to him. Instant control. In my opinion he reads the flight of a ball as good as anyone in the game.

Throw in the ability to kick both footed and you'll find that that is what his game is based around. He might not have the pace to burn like Odubajo did, and will very rarely go round the outside of a full-back on a jinking run, but his control and both-footed ability gains him that extra yard needed to create the number of assists he does.

Add in the loyalty and the tenacious winning mentality that he has and you can see why he's been a big-hit at Brisbane Road.

Good luck to you Dean. If you stay, you stay. And we'll all think you're crazy. If you go.. Good luck to you. You've earned it. We'll never forget your efforts and above all else. We know you cared.

The Italian Job - Francesco Becchetti

Who is this chap that spent £7m on taking Orient from third-tier challengers to relegation candidates within three months?

I'll try to shed some light on him. Mainly cut and pasted from old news articles.

Francesco Becchetti:

• 48 Years Old.
• Owns the Becchetti Energy Group (BEG). The core business is the design, construction and operation of hydroelectric plants and integrated centres for the treatment and exploitation of municipal solid waste, both in Italy and abroad.
• Comes from a family of waste disposal expertise. His uncle is Manlio Cerroni, the controversial owner of the Malagrotta landfill site and other sites across Europe.
• Also active on the wind energy sector across tha Balkans.
• Possibly resides in Albania.
• Took a lower-league handball team to the top of the competition in Italy.
• Just started the Agon TV Channel in Italy. It's been active in Albania for 18 months. Agon channel will specialise in Talent shows.
• Married to Armela Becchetti.
• Sounds like a Tony Soprano character. Waste management, Italian and all that..

Why the O's will miss Ben Chorley

Like him or loathe him, Ben Chorley man has left Orient after three-and-a-half years to join Stevenage on a longer-term contract than the O's were seemingly willing to give.

First and foremost I'd like to wish him all the best for the future (after we sneaked a win there last week) and good luck for his time at Broadhall Way / Lamex Stadium.

Now we're free to discuss what Ben brought to the team and also what we'll be lacking in his absence.

2011/12 season wasn't great for Orient in the main as we've covered in previous posts, in particular it didn't seem to go well for Ben Chorley. Regularly left out of the team to make way for Terrell Forbes, Scott Cuthbert and Dean Leacock this didn't bode well for when he did factor into the team as very uncharacteristic-like sloppy mistakes and shirking his duties were apparent in his play. As O's fans these were quite mystifying as the previous two-years performances and regular appearances had been solid for Ben.

I feel the culmination of this angst was away to relegation candidates Wycombe on the 06.03.2012. A totally unbalanced and dire Orient team* struggled in spectacular fashion to cope with Wycombe.

Four-Nil down after 39 minutes isn't great shakes by anybodies standard but it was in the 33rd minute that I witnessed (with my own eyes, a few yards from me) an extremely frustrated Chorley lambast 21 year old debutant Syam Ben Youssef.
If that doesn't seem bad enough, Youssef had only entered the fray in the 31st minute as Dean Leacock didn't seem to like the idea of being two-nil down to the basement boys on a cold-evening in Buckinghamshire and went down injured after thirty minutes.

That's correct, two minutes into his senior debut (and yet to touch a ball) Youssef had Chorley eye-balling him and for want of a better word, totally bollocking him off. This isn't how a senior pro should've gone about his business.

For the record. O's went on to lose against Wycombe 4-2 that night. The French-Tunisian Syam Ben Youssef left at the end of the season after nine appearances and has re-surfaced playing for Astra Giurgiu in Romania. I though he was pretty decent.

 When Stephen Dawson left for Barnsley we needed a new captain and most assumed that would be Chorley. I think Ben thought it'd be him too. The captaincy was handed to Matthew Spring. I believe this was a mistake on the part of Russell Slade and it well and truly split the camp in two. Chorley heading up the south of the river contingent (Chorley, Forbes, Lisbie Moses, Porter & Mooney) whilst Spring looked after the Essex-Based and North of the river bunch (Spring, Leacock, Cuthbert, Smith, Cox, McSweeney). Whilst I've no conclusive proof of the above, there was a split-squad and this became quite apparent among the O's faithful as things were getting worse.

Ben's not all trouble though. Not at all. I was quite shocked when he left the O's as he's been back to his brilliant best this season. A real captain, leader and influential player on the pitch.

All rifts seemed to have been healed and Slade was quick to heap praise on Chorley quite recently. When talking about Moses Odubajo's performances and development Slade mentioned the encouragement that Chorley had shown to Moses and all the younger players.

So what can Steveange fans expect of Chorley? Strong in the air, pretty reliable with the ball at his feet, strong in the challenge and tactically aware. Above all a very good professional who looks after himself well. As I said above. I'm going to miss him.

I'm writing this blog entry before the Tranmere game and I must be honest, am quite worried about the leadership in our team. Nathan Clarke is the club captain, but he's injured, so Scott Cuthbert will be the captain for today alongside the excellent Matthieu Baudry.

Scott Cuthbert is a fine defender, one of the best i can remember at the O's, but against Southend he didn't strike me as a leader. In fact the whole team against Southend seemed to lack leadership and direction. This worries me as its a step back to how we were last season when we were in free-fall.

I suppose only time will tell but at the moment I'd have preferred Chorley to be standing with us and leading us, rather than one of our rivals.

What constitutes a good season for the O's.

Supporting Leyton Orient is generally a chore that costs a bit of a whack and takes up more time than you'd like. Sort of like going to the dentist every week. The bad times outweigh the good and we're always having to fight over something. If we're not fighting to stay in the league, we're fighting to keep our players. If we're not fighting other teams with bigger budgets, we're fighting for our lives about the Olympic Stadium legacy. It's ultimately a perennial struggle.

With all that in mind what would the average O's fan believe would be a good season?

How we finished last season should give us a good indication. We finished one place and 7 points ahead of relegated Wycombe Wanderers.

Yep, that seems quite a comfortable gap, but truth be told, it was a long slog to get to that point and we'll be thankful to the Messy Irish, sorry the Irish Messi (Alan Judge of Notts County), for finally putting the nail in Wycombe's coffin with a very-late screamer at Adams Park in the penultimate game of the season.

On the last day of the season O's spanked already relegated Rochdale 2-1 in a non-event and Wycombe lost two-nil away to Sheffield Wednesday in another dead-rubber of a game. The league looked easy on the eye but the reality was a different story.

The 2011/12 season was meant to be the dawn of a new era. Slade was comfortably in situ and the previous season (2010/11) we'd finished 7th and narrowly missed out on a play-off position by two points (or one and an inferior GD). We'd had a tremendous FA Cup run winning away at (soon to be Premiership bound) Norwich and Swansea,  we also drew at home to Arsenal before getting knocked out to a Chamakh hat-trick at the Emirates. Throw in the 8-2 victory over Droylsden, Dave Pace getting all animated, plenty of TV matches and some sublime football and you almost forgot it was Orient. Chuck in 3 players from up the road going by the names of M'Poku, Carroll & Kane and the season had been a resounding success. Good times were coming.

This couldn't have been further from the truth. We lost three key players in the summer, Revell and Whing to lower-league teams and McGleish effectively retired. Come pre-season time and the re-building had hardly commenced. We were ill prepared and a shambles at the start of the season. After 10 games we hadn't won a single match and the wheels had firmly fallen off. To give Slade his due though, the following 9 games O's were unbeaten and looking solid again.

Then it all went horribly wrong again, Omozusi got in trouble with the law, we cashed in on Daniels and Dawson during the January window to Bournemouth and Barnsley respectively and I haven't even mentioned the Goalkeeping and left-back problems we had. The season was effectively a write-off and as documented above we did well to finish 7 points safe in the end.

Fast-forward back to the present day and we haven't started this season too well either, serving up sometimes sublime and sometimes ridiculous football. Mixing up silky football and solid formations along with long-ball shite and some of the most odd-looking team selections you could dream off.

Things have calmed down a bit now, the team has settled, contracts have been signed, players released and Symes has eaten cake. This is good news, things are looking.. pretty average.

Since November we seem to have settled on a 442 formation with players playing in the right positions. There's also been an emphasis of late on attacking teams from the start rather than going behind and trying to claw a game back.

We've shown we can compete in this division. We've generally beaten the teams you would've expected us to beat as well as taking 4 points of Brentford and winning away vs Swindon. I think we can safely say that Doncaster are the only team that has us truly defeated.

How's this for an oddity. Of our games played so far we've only drawn two. Both against Crewe. We're rubbish at getting back into games (haven't won and only drawn twice from losing positions), yet we're amazing at holding onto a lead ( haven't lost and again only drawn twice from winning positions).

Where do we go from here? I'm afraid to tell you we're not going up either automatically or via the play-offs. We'd need to average two points per game from hereon in to reach sixth spot and that's not gonna happen. We'll not get relegated either. For the record I think you'll need 76/77 points to reach the play-offs and maybe only 45 points to avoid relegation.

We also have a double-headed regional final vs the Shrimps in the JPT and hopefully this'll give us a much needed day out at Wembley and our revenues a shot in the arm through prize-money and TV coverage.

Personally speaking I'll happily take a top-half finish (we'll need 66 points), which would mean we have to keep our form of the last 10/12 games up. Throw a JPT final appearance into it as well and i'd have said that the O's would have a had a fairly average (decent) season.

Lacklustre O's beaten by stylish Donny

When a groundsman wins the man of the match award you know you've hardly been at a spectacle of a match.

Step forward Doncaster Rovers groundsman Andy Thompson (@Andy_Thompson21) for getting this game on at all. Along with the help of several Doncaster snow shifters and a barmy Orient one the game went ahead as planned on a perfectly playable surface,  though there might have been a frozen bit here and there. It seemed quite mild too to be fair and a lot warmer and less windy than back down in London.

The trains were running fine on the way up despite the weather and the journey was pretty uneventful, though my companion was most pleased to spot a floating RTV31 locomotive based somewhere around Peterborough. This would ultimately be the highlight of the day.

A floating train in Peterborough.

The walk from station to stadium was quite pretty in the snow and almost picturesque if trading estates and warehouses are your thing. After a bit of a walk where the parking and fast-food gets increasingly expensive, you finally arrive at the Keepmoat Stadium and realise you really are in the middle of nowhere.

The Keepmoat itself is pretty impressive in this era of modern stadia. Sort of a mini St Mary's. It has a Sports Centre backing onto it and that looked quite decent too.

£24 to get in, decent facilities, scalding hot water, comfy seats and plenty of room. They even moved the 200 of us because of the snow which was a nice touch.

A panoramic of the Keepmoat Stadium, Doncaster.

Russell Slade decided to rest most of our decent players because they're all absolutely knackered. I can see the logic of this and even thought the team that he sent out would be quite quick on the counter and able to do a bit of damage that way.

Jones and a pretty solid back four in front of him, Smith and Griffith holding and the other 4 using a bit of pace to attack on the break. Simple plan. Not that easy to execute. Charlie MacDonald at 5'7'' and debutant Ade Azeez (on-loan from Charlton) didn't even make a dent in  the lofty Doncaster centre-backs, Moses ran out of steam after a few minutes and Cox might as well have not bothered to turn up.

Random picture of Russell as not much else happened.

With a lack of movement and activity in front of them Smith and Griffith' looked lost and the defence could only hold-on for 19 minutes before it was breached. From their first corner of the game, O's switched off and Rob Jones powered home a fine header.

And that was that really. O's offered absolutely nothing in response. We weren't quite as bad as the BBC stats made out and we did have a couple of hit and hope shots but ultimately it was game over.

On 54 minutes somebody woke Chris Brown up and after being caught offside a couple of times and slotting one wide, he managed to hit the target and make it 2-0 to Doncaster.

During the 2nd half O's introduced Mooney, Cook & then Rowlands but although it shored them up a bit, this was clearly Doncaster's game and there was nothing Orient could do to alter that.

The ref blew the final whistle, 6,500 Doncaster fans went home happy and 200 O's trudged back home knowing that their team had just been beaten by a team that will more than likely get promoted this year.

Doncaster are strong when they need to be and also mix it up by playing some neat football. They're easily the strongest team I've seen this year.

O's Man of the Match - Ben Chorley, played like a captain should and held it together well. It could've been a lot worse without Big Ben at the back.

Orient - Jones, Sawyer, Chorley, Cuthbert, McSweeney (Cook), Cox, Smith, Griffith (Rowland), Odubaju, MacDonald, Azeez (Mooney)