Why I can't support Fabio Liverani as manager of Leyton Orient

The revolving door of Leyton Orient has been spun and unfortunately for Fabio Liverani, it has landed at his door. Welcome to the club.

So why can't i support this fella? In a nutshell, it's Francesco Becchetti's fault. For being so needlessly selfish. Allow me to explain:

I don't believe that Liverani is the right person to lead us out of a League One relegation scrap, i don't feel that he has the knowledge of English League One football and I don't believe that he has the contacts that an experienced manager could bring.

I don't feel that managing Genoa for six games, winning one, drawing one and losing four, is the type of experience needed to manage Leyton Orient and I can't believe that we've replaced a manager who lacked experience with a manager of a similar ilk.

I feel that his lack of spoken English is going to be telling, i don't think that by bringing over his 'team' is the right move and i don't think that offering a two-year deal to him is wise.

Having to report to the person he just replaced as manager seems pretty odd too.

I can't see that he is going to be able to motivate the players without being able to communicate with them, nor being able to set his game-plans and tactics in action.

I also can't see how the remaining members of staff can be kept on after having their toes trod on.

Off the pitch he's not going to provide much in the way of community plans or inspire the youth players coming through.

But all that can be forgiven. Everyone has to start somewhere remember. And we've probably had worse over the years.

What really pisses me off about this appointment (and the reason why I don't endorse or will be supporting this appointment), is that it isn't a football related one. It's about a poxy TV show on a poxy TV Channel broadcast in Italy or Albania or somewhere.

If this was purely a football decision, then you'd go for an experienced manager with a wealth of knowledge of the lower-leagues, the country, the players and tactics in general.

Here's a list of out of work managers who we could've had:

• Terry Butcher
• Owen Coyle
• Dougie Freedman
• Tony Mowbray

Not to mention my personal favourite (Brian McDermott, who I'd have moved heaven and earth to get here).

And that's just the out of work managers.. not to mention the likes of John Still, Paul Tisdale, Micky Mellon and soon to be out of work Ian Holloway. Not to mention countless others working their way up from non-league or coaching Premiership youth teams.

No. We're lumbered with an Italian speaking coach with no experience of the league we're currently playing in. But he's gonna look great on the TV show, with his Italian assistants, coaches, players all assessing a game show.

To sum it all up, this appointment hasn't been made with the best interests of Leyton Orient at heart.

This is a selfish move by an owner who seems intent on trying to win an audience in a TV battle.

And that is why I can't support a move like this.

The Italian Job - Russell Slade's Pre-Season Signings - Part One

There's been a lot of criticism of Russell Slade's Pre-Season signings. Let's delve into what happened, why it happened and how it happened.

The takeover from Hearn to Becchetti is complete. If rumour is to be believed, Russell was asked to name five players for each position in the squad, funds not a problem, anyone you like. Mauro Milanese (of whom we'll discuss later) and Becchetti would do the rest.

Naturally Russell went shopping in the Championship as any sane fella would do.

Adam Legzdins - Signed a two-year contract on the 13.06.2014.
According to both Slade and Legzdins we'd been in for him the previous season when he was at Derby and we needed a keeper. Derby were reluctant to let him go, fortunately for us we got Jakupovic.

Slade obviously liked the sound of Legzdins and at 6' 4'' he certainly sounded like the dominant type of keeper that Jones wasn't.

Bradley Pritchard - Signed a two-year contract on the 10.07.2014.
On the face of it, nobody really knew what this signing was about. We'd lost Moses to Brentford, but Pritchard certainly didn't spring to mind as a direct replacement on the wing. Personally i put this signing down to adding a bit of depth in midfield, providing cover and competition for Vincelot and James.

Regardless of what Slade had in mind, we'd been picking from the Championship again so no complaints on that front, plus the few Charlton fans that piped up said that we had a livewire-workaholic type of player. That definitely fits the Slade mould.

Gary Woods - Signed a two-year contract on the 17.07.2014.
Wow.. We can afford two Championship quality keepers of our own! No loans for a change! Similar to Legzdins in that we as fans had no real idea of what we were getting.

We knew that he played a load of games for Doncaster when they were promoted from the Division Three though. Gotta be a good keeper.

Shane Lowry - Signed a two-year contract on the 21.07.2014.
A player that we've heard of! I think Russell brought Lowry to Brisbane Road to shore up the left-back position and add some more quality depth to one of the best defences in the league.

25 years old, over 100 games at Championship level, this was a top-notch signing.


The Lowry signing had me (and no doubt others) starting to realise that Slade's shopping list wasn't a fabrication at all. We had a new owner, we meant business, and the four signings so far had definitely improved on what we had the previous season.

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..

The Italian Job - The Takeover

Things moved pretty swift in the summer at the O's. We only finished at Wembley towards the end of May, by mid-June things surrounding a takeover were moving swiftly.. a new company had been set up, registered in Covent Garden owned by three Italians and Barry was giving it the big 'un in the press.

Franceso Becchetti, yes him of the shit-shifting empire, had been at Wembley to witness us take Rotherham to the cleaners and snatch our rightful place in the Championship after pissing the league all season capitulate in the second-half. And again in the penalty shoot-out.

Regardless of the outcome he must've been impressed with what he see. An upwardly moving club, Manager of the year, no debts, crowds growing and three previous matches where the atmosphere was amongst the best we've seen at Brisbane Road ever. Plus a little Barry sitting on his shoulder '..Go on Franny lad, dare ya.., you can make things happen here...bring yer shit-shovelling here and work yer magic..'

Credit where it's due, Becchetti bought us on the 7th July 2014 for £7m. He didn't get the ground though. That stays with Matchroom. No need to worry on that front hey?!?!?

Let me clarify that for you. Generally speaking he paid £7m for 20-odd people that kick a ball around for a living in the third division. There was a lot of goodwill included in that £7m though. Aside from West Ham fans, we're everybody's second favourite team.

When you're a billionaire I suppose you have these impulse buys.

What we know now but didn't at the time:

• Francesco Becchetti had the right hump that Moses was sold to Brentford for a £1m. Still not sure why he had the hump about it though. Maybe he thought he was worth more (i certainly did), or because we sold them to a rival (at the time, they're so much better than us now though).
• We were going to be part of an Italian / Albanian TV show about football.

The Italian Job - Prologue

I've dusted off the old blog and decided to pen a few (a lot of) words about the current state of affairs at the O's.

I'm not going to talk about anything from the 2013/14 season as i prefer to keep that locked away in my brain. After all, when Coxy put us two-up just before half-time, there ain't too much more to mention apart from comfortably seeing the game out...

Moving on.. basically it's all gone to shit. I'm gonna attempt this by having chapters. First of i think I'll start out with what i believe happened over the close-season. Then move on to Russell Slade, then Nugent, now Milanese. Then maybe a bit on the players. Hopefully there'll be more logic behind what i type than a basic rant.

I'm pretty sure that nobody will agree with my views. And that's fine. I just feel that i have to get a few bits off my chest..

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.