Dark Years Not Days

It’s always difficult to know what to say to people in their most difficult moments. You fear saying the wrong thing, probably because nothing can give any real kind of comfort. The worst thing to say is “things will be ok”. In those dark moments it doesn’t feel like it, it feels like it’ll never be the same again.

I am really fed up being told that things will be ok for Orient. I know the people offering words of solace are well meaning and the sentiment behind them is appreciated. But although a light is finally being shone on Orient’s problems, the magnitude of them isn’t understood by people who haven’t been living and breathing the last three years of turmoil at Brisbane Road.

I first started getting annoyed when Radio 5 Live’s reporter at the Crewe game attributed the clubs downfall to the high turnover of managers. That doesn’t even begin to tell the story of the way the club has been mismanaged for the last three years. The managerial merry go round seems like little more than a sideshow.

As had been said many times, relegation isn’t the biggest problem Orient are facing at the moment. Even though it didn’t feel like it on Saturday evening relegation is almost incidental compared to the precarious existence of the club. It’s hard to keep perspective when it is your club but right now it feels like Orient have more in common with Stockport County than Grimsby Town. Nice as it is that clubs like Grimsby have offered their stories along with their hope that we will follow in their footsteps it is hard to be optimistic that it will happen.

The significance of the moment has almost lulled everyone into thinking that we have reached the bottom of the barrel. 112 years unbroken Football League membership, thrown away by an incompetent egomaniac. Short of going bust it is the worst thing we could feasibly imagine happening to us. On the field, Orient’s fall is complete. But is it?

Orient and non-Orient fans are now talking of returning to the Football League as soon as possible, We have hit rock bottom and now have to bounce back. Just because the drop into non-league football is a symbolic one it doesn’t mean that Orient can’t continue to drop. If the club isn’t stabilised on and off the field we are likely to continue our fall. Given the disasterous mis-management of the last three years that won’t be easy and is highly unlikely to have an immediate effect. Trying to walk before we run could lead to more stumbles before the club can start to move forward again.

This isn’t pessimism, it is realism. There have been 28 teams relegated since the number of clubs relegated from the Football League was increased to 2. Of the 28 teams relegated, 12 haven’t returned to the League at all. Nearly half. On average, it has taken the teams that have returned four years to regain their league status. The average doesn’t tell the story though. The most concerning statistic is about the clubs who haven’t been able to return immediately. Only four teams have come straight back up. Hardly any clubs have returned to the league between 2 and 4 years after their relegation. Clubs have either come straight back up or it is a 5 or 6 year wait to return. That is if you are in the 54% of clubs who come back at all.

Danny Webb made a last ditch plea to be allowed to plan for next season before it was too late before finally resigning in frustration. We’re now a month further on. I don’t think anyone holds out any real hope of anyone starting to run the club properly again before 12 June. Once again, even in a best case scenario, Orient won’t be ready to re-sign their best players and approach leading targets until it’s too late. And who would join Orient in its current state, even if a new owner had just stepped in? If we are playing in the National League next year it is going to be with players that no one else wanted at the start of the summer. That is eerily reminiscent of 3 years ago when Barry Hearn sold the club in the middle of the summer. Whoever is going to put a team together for next year is going to have to be astute and bring together a collection of solid professionals, capable of stabilising the club at its current level. We need that platform before we can think about building again. If past experience is any guide that building job will take years to complete rather than just months.

The Solid Foundations of Success

As Crawley hammered the final nails into Orient’s season, thoughts turned immediately to next season. These weren’t calm thoughts about strategic plans for the future but angry and frustrated people voicing concerns that next season might be lost even before it has begun. Even Danny Webb, who has attempted to spin positive lines in even the most difficult circumstances, felt moved to challenge whoever is currently running the club to back him. I got the impression he felt he no longer had anything to lose. Speak out and face the sack for stepping out of line. Keep schtum and he could either be out of a job when his contract expires in the summer or find himself as a manager with no players.

Regardless of whether Webb’s pleas get the desired response, the 12 June court date hangs heavy over the club. No player in their right mind would commit themselves to a club that could feasibily no longer exist in three month’s time if they have a better offer elsewhere. But if Orient go have a future and whenever that future starts, a major rebuilding exercise is required. Forget about instant returns - it may take some time to lay the foundations before building for success.

Francesco Becchetti’s impatience with managers at the first sign of trouble has been well documented. What of the players themselves?

Since Becchetti, who has always been closely engaged in first team affairs, took over at Orient, 77 different players have made league starts for the club. 61 of those players have been contracted to the club, with the remaining 16 loanees. That is 21 more players than in the last three years of Hearn’s reign, almost an entire squad of players.

It was always said that Russell Slade’s sides were slow starters to the season. It was an unfair criticism of a manager who found himself rebuilding during most summers. It was no coincidence that when he had the most continuity between the 12/13 and 13/14 seasons we made a flying start and ended at Wembley.  In the Wembley season only 24 players made starts. Only 6 of them were permanent new signings. Were it not for the circumstances that led to Slade fielding 5 different goalkeepers that season it would have been even fewer.

2014/15

By contrast, Becchetti dismantled the ‘squad with no future’ instead of building on the successes of the previous season. In his first season in charge 31 different players made league starts. 12 were inherited from the play off season, 12 were signed and 7 came in on loan. Slade’s new players struggled to find their feet at the start of each season. In Becchetti’s first season we never got off of our knees as the team was constantly changed and was never given a chance to gel before the season ran out and ended in relegation.

2015/16

Only 7 players from that first season returned in 2015/16. 3 of the play off squad (Cox, James and Baudry) and 4 of the 12 new signings made in the first season (Wright, Simpson, Pritchard and Cisak). Orient were in contention for the play offs for most of the season but the longer the season went on without breaking back into the play off places the quicker the merry go round went again. By the end of the season at total of 33 players, 7 of them loanees, had made League starts. 14 contracted senior players made their debuts during the season and they were joined by 5 youth team players taking their first bows. Once again, the team wasn’t given an opportunity to gel but the relative stability before Ian Hendon was sacked at least prevented us from sinking into a relegation battle.

2016/17

The lessons weren’t learned though. Of those 14 players signed in 2015/16, only 6 of them stayed and made starts this season. Two of those players were Sean Clohessy and Sammy Moore, who were both deemed surplus to requirements early in the season. Dean Cox, the last remaining member of the play-off squad, was also gone just over two years after the Wembley final. Alex Cisak is the only player still at the club who has started in each of Becchetti’s three seasons.

33 players have made League starts for Orient this season so far, a third of them recent promotees from the youth team. Even if some of those youth team players had been blended with a few more senior players during the January transfer window the chances are that, as was the case in 2014/15, it was already too late for them to develop any sort of team chemistry.

What chance?

There is no doubt that most if not all of Becchetti’s managers would feel that they weren’t given a proper chance to show what they could do. The players could justifiably claim the same. ‘Permanent’ players that have started league games under Becchetti but have since left the club were given an average of 23 starts to show their worth before they departed.  That includes that nucleus of 12 players from the play-off squad, who on average went on to make just 22 further starts each.

And it’s got worse rather than better. 11 senior players have made their debuts for Orient this season. They have made an average of 18 starts each, less than half of the games. By the end of the season a significant majority of the squad will have started less than half of the league games.

For any club to be successful it requires stability. That goes right from the boardroom, to the managers and the players that are on the field. And it may require patience from fans as well. Chances are we will be starting from scratch again at the start of the season. We should have learned by now that we will go nowhere but backwards if the next batch of players and their manager aren’t given a proper chance to develop and build.

Where did they play?

Goalkeepers – 5

Right back – 7

Left back – 8
Centre backs – 13
Right wing – 5
Left wing – 5
Centre Midfield  - 16
Strikers – 18

The team with the most appearances

GK:         Alex Cisak

DR:         Nicky Hunt

DL:          Shane Lowery

DC:         Mathieu Baudry

DC:         Tom Parkes

MR:        Gavin Massey

ML:        Dean Cox

MC:        Bradley Pritchard

MC:        Nigel Atangana

A:            Jay Simpson

A:            Ollie Palmer

 

Remember them? The team with the least appearances

GK:         Adam Legzdins

DR:         Neal Eardley

DL:          Adam Chicksen

DC:         Alan Dunne

DC:         Jean Yves Mvoto

MR:        Ulrich N’nomo

ML:        Calaum Jahraldo-Martin

MC:        Michael Petrasso

MC:        John Lundstram

A:            Kevin Lisbie

A:            Scott Kashket

Town Called Malice

So, in the meaningless football parlance of the time, we go again on 12 June. Orient’s future on and off the pitch remains in the hands of others, with the odds stacked against us in both cases. Becchetti’s decision to pay the tax bill and promise a further £1 million ‘investment’ generates new questions about his motivations.

The revelation that club photographer Simon O’Connor is owed £6,000 by the club has confirmed a the commonly held view that Becchetti’s ownership has been characterised by petty malice and spite. However, I’ve never actually believed that. Maybe it is because I realised years ago that paranoia makes us feel important but the sad reality is that most people just don’t care enough to pursue a feud against you. And that is my point. At this point Becchetti cares about Leyton Orient as one of his business assets but has no greater personal feelings towards us then he does the average waste management plant.

His decision to pay the tax bill without telling anyone, particularly the staff at the club, hasn’t been done to mess with the minds and emotions of anyone who cares about the club. It is simply a continuation of the autocratic way that he has run the club over the last 2 and a half years. No one has been consulted about it, it hasn’t been announced and it hasn’t been explained. Becchetti and Becchetti alone runs the club and he doesn’t believe he needs advice or approval from anyone else. You only have to look at his refusal to even seek assistance from an interpreter when issuing rare announcements to ensure that they make sense and convey the meaning that he wants. That is pretty low level stuff when it comes to accepting the advice from others.

In his mind he knows best and will run the club his way. Barry Hearn was no different when he first came into the club, although fortunately he never thought the way to succeed was to throw money down the drain. Just as importantly he learned from his mistakes. He worked out where he knew best and where he should take advice from others. And when he asked the wrong people, he worked out who the right people were. Becchetti on the other hand has made expensive errors one after the other, never appearing to have a long term plan and never acknowledging mistakes. Each impatient decision he has made out of increasing frustration that he hasn’t been able to get what he wants immediately –success and the respect and kudos that follows.

As was inevitable he eventually lost patience and admitted defeat (to himself rather than to others and a long time before the famous Blackpool protest). Did he finally decide to bring someone on board who could help him deliver the success he craved? No because in his mind it wasn’t him that was the problem, it was the club and its unappreciative fans. The solution? To take his money to another team where his methods will lead to success. Ternana Calcio in Italy are the new lucky benefactors. To him now Leyton Orient is just a business, an asset. The only interest he has in it is how much money he can recoup from it. The only reason invest any more money into it is to make sure he protects whatever small return he may get back from it.

The counter argument to that is that if he really cared about maximising what he can recoup he wouldn’t have condemned us to non-league football. For a start that presumes that just because he wants to do something he goes about it in a competent and logical way. And secondly, by cutting his costs by releasing senior players and withdrawing all but the bare minimum essential financial support for the club he is simply cutting his losses. He believes that the relegation will cost him less than continuing to pay their wages. It is a business decision, not a football one. He has done it before on an individual basis, as high earning players have been released with mutually agreed pay offs rather than continuing to pay their wages for the duration of their contracts.

The staff and creditors who have showed loyalty and patience to the club and community have deserved to be treated much better than they have been.  When viewed by fans who love the club and care about the people, vindictiveness seems to be the only explanation for such behaviour towards the. However, a businessman and entrepreneur’s first loyalty is to himself, his business interests and his financial backers. His decisions will be based on that alone, albeit clouded by emotion and impatience.

What Orient fans need to fear and has remained unchanged today, is that at some point Becchetti will feel as though he has no other options than to make one final and fatal cutting of his losses.  He may do just that if he thinks that what he has to put into the club for it to remain viable will be more than he is ever likely to get back at this point. Administration may seem like a positive thing, a convenient way of relieving Becchetti of his ownership. But it will plunge the club and its staff into even greater uncertainty. And if, as I believe to be the case, Becchetti will remain as the club’s largest creditor, it may be no more appealing to a new owner than it is right now. Armed with hindsight Os fans pre-2014 could give Os fans post-2016 some good advice – be careful what you wish for.  Sadly the club we love will continue to be kicked around like the proverbial football for quite a while longer.

Fit and Proper Person

The most frequently asked questions at Brisbane Road over the last 2 years have been why do we always concede just after half-time, why can no-one take a decent penalty and how did Francesco Becchetti pass the Football League’s fit and proper person test? The answer is, quite easily because the test isn’t what you think it is or would like it to be.

The League’s Fit and Proper Person test was introduced in 2004 to stop unfit individuals from running football clubs. It applies to anyone who has significant control over the running of a football club, not just owners. The Test isn’t a subjective assessment of whether someone would be a successful owner. You couldn’t objectively assess that against a set of rules that are transparent, fair and consistently applied.

So what does make someone unfit to own or run a football club in the Football League’s eyes? Under its rules an unfit person is anyone:

·         Serving a ban, suspension or disqualification by either a sporting governing body or a professional body (e.g. the Institute of Chartered Accountants)

·         Anyone who has admitted to breaching or found to have breached rules on betting on football matches

·         Has unspent convictions for criminal offences involving fraud, corruption or dishonesty anywhere in the world (anything from perverting the course of justice to siphoning your neighbours Sky TV into your own house)

·         Any unspent convictions that result in imprisonment for 12 months or more, anywhere in the world

·         Subject to a banning order under the Football Spectators Act

·         A registered offender under the Sexual Offences Act

·         Anyone disqualified from being a Company Director

·         Anyone subject to insolvency matters (e.g. bankrupt, in administration or subject tto other debt recovery matters)

·         Has been involved at a club that that has gone into administration twice since 2004, or at two different clubs that have both gone into administration

The disqualification criteria are pretty black and white and there is no question that Mr Becchetti complies with the Football League rules.

One suspicion about the rules is that they can be circumnavigated by using shell companies that cloud who or what actually owns and controls a club.  But the rules apply to anyone controlling the running of a club. For instance, when Massimo Cellino ‘took over’ at Leeds United he was only minority shareholder in the holding company that actually owned Leeds. However, Cellino was still subject to the test as he was seen to be acting on behalf of other the other shareholders of the holding company. The Leeds case also disproves one of the other myths going round about the rules. It has been said that the Test is only applied when someone first takes over the club. That isn’t true and Cellino has been disqualified at different times during his Leeds tenure as details about alleged prosecutions have come to light (and subsequently been dismissed, leading to the removal of the bans).

The other instructive example as far as Orient are concerned is the first club Director disqualified under these rules, Denis Coleman at Rotherham. Coleman was a Director at Rotherham when they twice entered administration. That is the one section of the rules that covers someone’s ability to run a club competently. But Coleman was unfortunate to fall foul of the rules through no mis-management on his part. The reasons given for their struggle at the time was that Rotherham were saddled with a huge wage bill that had to be reduced. Once that was done they were no longer able to compete and they dropped down the leagues and attendances went down. Their second issue was having to continue paying rent on their Millmoor ground to their previous owner!

At this point, with Becchetti seemingly willing to sell the club and with an interested buyer in the wings (www.guardian-series.co.uk/sport/15147983.Prospective_buyer_still_interested_in_Orient__no_matter_what_league_they_are_in_/?ref=twtrec), the question over whether Becchetti would still pass the test is hopefully irrelevant.

However, scrutiny of the rules is still relevant. The League’s rules do stop unsuitable people from owning football clubs (probably a far better description than ‘fit and proper’). But it is clear that the League’s Governance rules do nothing to stop clubs being run unsustainably and saddled with huge levels of debt and then crashing and burning. Fans should demand better because short-termism is what has afflicted so many clubs over the decades, especially in the Premier League era, not clubs being de-frauded by known criminals. So long as all of the money is hoarded at the top of the game in the Bank of the Promised Land and clubs can spend freely to try to get there, clubs will keep plunging through the trap door when the money dries up.

And that is why, even if there is a relatively smooth transition to a new wealthy owner in the next six months, the Orient Regeneration Fund (www.leytonorientfanstrust.com/fund.asp) is so vital. If the fund allows Orient fans to have a real stake and a say in how the club is run it will be worth every penny.

Orient Revival

After five years in mothballs I got the understandable urge to revive the blog I used to write about Orient. Back in 2012 I’d found it difficult to find things to write about every week and instead of being enjoyable it became a bit of the chore that I didn’t look forward to anymore. If that isn’t the perfect segue into Leyton Orient in 2017 I don’t know what is. Plenty to talk about and twitter isn’t quite enough to express it.

In the briefest of moments on Wednesday night possibly one of the most important decisions in Leyton Orient’s history was taken via a show of hands by 200 supporters. The Ex-Servicemens Club in Leytonstone was an appropriate venue for a club with a proud history both on and off the pitch.

Contradictorily, the decision appeared to be a no brainer but was based on trying to guess the next move of the predictably unpredictable Francesco Becchetti. It was also a decision not to be taken lightly as it affected not only the 200 Leyton Orient Fans Trust members present and the wider support. Leyton Orient still employ a number of excellent staff who have continued working in the club’s best interests under extreme conditions for the last 2 and a half years. Just as they have a duty of care towards the club, so the fans owe them a duty of care when taking decisions that could affect their employment and lives. The Trust have put in incredible hard work to understand the situation the club is in and explore the options available to the fans. Those fans owe them gratitude and constructive contributions.

Ultimately the Trust felt it was left with no other option. Personally I was relieved that there were options that could help to keep the club alive. The idea that Becchetti could decide to cut his losses, not attend the hearing and allow the club to be liquidated was scary to say the least. That scenario is entirely possible if he has decided that he isn’t going to find a buyer willing to meet his terms and isn’t prepared to put any more money into the club. The news that LOFT and other shareholders can try to convince the court to appoint an administrator who could sell the club to new investors was more important than the pledge by Waltham Forest Council about the future of the ground.

Orient’s creditors would also be able to make their own representations to the court. The nature of their submissions would depend on whether they believe their financial interests are best served by the club continuing or for it to be liquidated and its assets sold to service the debts. I don’t know whether the court would entertain any submission from the biggest creditor in all but name – Francesco Becchetti.

All of this would only come to pass in the event that Becchetti does not appear in court to either pay the tax bill or seek an extension to allow himself the time to do so. No one knows exactly how likely that is. I think that Becchetti is the only one who can put a convincing case to the court that it would be worth their while adjourning the case to a later date. Any appeal for a delay by LOFT would give the impression that talk of potential investors hasn’t got any further than that – just talk. It is clear to me that LOFT cannot afford to be sitting on its hands should the winding up petition not be contested because by then it would be too late, there would be no club to save.

One of the side-shows at the LOFT meeting was on the point of points. We all want a viable football club playing at the highest possible level. A phoenix club starting from scratch after liquidation could find itself as low as the Essex Senior League, with a rubbish name like AFC Orient. There are no guarantees it would even get off the ground, let alone come back up the leagues. If it goes into administration Leyton Orient could have 12 points deducted this season or next season or face multiple deductions as it goes in and out of administration. It would still exist to try to win the points back on the pitch. It would still exist to employ people and we’d still have a team to watch at Blackpool in May and AFC Fylde in 2017/18.

The Fans Trust cannot afford to allow the current situation on the pitch to affect thinking about the long term future of the Club. A decision on administration must be taken at the right time to ensure the club continues and that needs to be the only consideration. The club can still survive if it is relegated to the National League but not if it has been condemned to the history books.

Every step that is taken now is based on an assessment of the risk of doing something compared to the risk of doing nothing. We can’t sit and hope any more, everyone must, together, stand up for the Orient.

What's in a name?

Unfortunately the blog this season has been as infrequent as Saturday afternoons at Brisbane Road. Various issues have prevented me getting online for a few weeks. I'm afraid there be nothing next week either because I'll be in Belfast seeing Glentoran on Saturday and Ulster v Castres Olympique in the rugby. So talking of Saturday afternoon's at Brisbane Road and the Olympiques - segue>

I could talk about another tedious afternoons viewing but the news that the Os were about to officially become London's favourite team seemed to attract far more interest this week. Naturally the hardcore fans were outraged and everyone else was generally amused. No doubt one of those French rugby players would just shrug his shoulders and exclaim "c'est la vie". After a little while most were dismissing it as a gimmick but made the mistake it thinking it came from the same place as celebrity red carpet walk ons and Simply The Best.

The Olympic Stadium legacy debate changed once the Olympics had actually taken place. The Olympics and everything connected to it, including the, venues became ours. It's no longer a pain in the backside, it's something most people loved. It felt like the contractors handed the keys over to the public rather than LOCOG. A Games lacking in superficial glitz and glamour was a spectacular success thanks to the life that people breathed into it. The idea of then handing over a whole Stadium filled with memories, to a Premiership football club with more money at their disposal than many of the Olympic sporting bodies suddenly became something people felt strongly about. Football was no longer not the only game in town, it was the least appealling.

If they had announced that the Stadium was going to be taken away from us and given to West Ham in the last 6 weeks there would have been an outcry. People want the chance to go back again (or go for the first time), sooner than the 2017 Athletics World Championships. Many of them aren't football fans, in fact plenty are probably increasingly repulsed by it, whether that be because of the disproportionate amounts of money and coverage it attracts or the tawdry behaviour of the highest profile participants. You could actually link those two up, as most of the coverage and most of the money seems to go to football's worst offenders. The most public face of football isn't a pretty one.

West Ham quickly recognised this. Their arrogant bid had until recently been based on the fact that the Mayor of London couldn't afford NOT to give them the Stadium because there were no straightforward viable alternatives. They've not tempered the arrogance, publicly announcing the conditions under which they would and wouldn't be willing to accept this multi-million pound gift from the public purse, including sharing the facility with anyone else. They did though launch a cheap exercise which bizarrely claimed that they were the centre of the East London community before the Games and that giving them the Stadium would lead to them identifying the future East London Olympians of the future. That is all it was though, a PR exercise. Their trump card still remains that they are the only single entity that can guarantee filling at least half of the Stadium in its reconfigured state on a regular basis.

Barry Hearn knows that he has only one chance of moving Orient into the Olympic Park. We need to be a big piece of a jigsaw of users of the Stadium when it is re-opened. Few details of Orient's bid have been revealed until this point under secrecy agreements that form part of the bidding process. I don't know what it means that some details have leaked out this week. I have been certain from the start though that it contains two big elements. Firstly, that the stadium will have to be temporarily configured (by use of curtains or something more innovative) so that there aren't 55,000 empty seats visible each week. Secondly, that the proposal will include ideas for use by others entities as well, some of which have been mooted before. If Orient feature in the Stadium's future, so will concerts, athletics, rugby, cricket and probably and whole host of other events. The Stadium will be open to as many Londoners as possible. People will get the chance to enjoy the facility because it won't have a single use. Some might even realise that football exists beyond John Terry and come and find out about us.

Hearn hopes to tap into this by rebranding the club as London Orient to fit in with its new place in the capital's sporting landscape. An insult to our history claim some. That history includes being called Clapton Orient and just Orient and playing in blue, white and red shirts. Things change. I don't feel that losing Leyton from our name is that big a deal. The majority of the fan base have no connection with Leyton beyond the club itself. Most ARE from London though. The more I thought about it on Friday the more I thought about how proud I'd be for our name to be a combination of the unique part of our club's name (Orient) and the place that I was actually born in. Would it, by itself, attract fans? I doubt it. But it would be symbolic of what we are about. Playing in a publicy owned stadium, named after the city that owns that stadium, owned and run by it's own supporters...OK, maybe that is a pipe dream!

Obviously Hearn has his own motives for wanting the move but that isn't to say that they don't coincide with the best interests for the club in all cases. No one knows for certain what impact West Ham moving to the stadium will have on us, or what the future would hold for Orient if we moved there. Any decision Barry Hearn makes in the next few years will be a gamble, with the stakes probably much higher than for any of his other decisions during his tenure. But he is a man who has successfully changed the face of other sporting entities during his career, seeking to link up with the organisers of one the most successful sporting events the world has seen. It isn't beyond the realms of possibility that they could create the circumstances neccesary to make the future of the Olympic Stadium a fruitful one.

Reasons to be temporarily cheerful

With three points finally in the bag yesterday, open warfare on Russell Slade was temporarily suspended. Even those that had travelled to Swindon all psyched up to hurl abuse at the no longer loved boss had to put their plans on ice as the Os started well. Once Lee Cook bagged the win even the most vociforous knew it'd be churlish to go ahead with their protests and they could wait for another day. Of course the gaffer is from from off the hook but at least our nose dive start was arrested and that first win of the season is always crucial. Thank god it came much earlier than it did last year because I don't think he'd have been able to hold on to his job for as long this season.

There are encouraging signs for Orient after a bad start that we've not entirely recovered from yet. At this point goals seem as important as wins and the absence of a single goal from open play until yesterday is extremely concerning. That may change over time though, if we can keep picking up wins. The promotion season was founded on countless one-goal wins and it is clear that Slade feels most comfortable shutting up shop and snatching wins from few chances. It is a tactic that has had us tearing our hair out because we aren't good enough defensively and don't have strikers capable of scoring unless given at least 3 or 4 chances. All we've been doing for the best part of 6 months is inviting teams onto us who have eventually picked us apart.

Slade's late signings may have seen a turn of fortunes and maybe even tactics if yesterday is anything to go by. I thought the reaction to last week's defeat at Crawley seemed well over the top. Lee Cook and Martin Rowlands are two quality signings. If some of our other aquisitions over the last 12 months have been underwhelming, I don't think it is unreasonable to say the two ex-QPR players exceed our expectations of the sort of player we can attract. Their introduction made an immediate impact against Crawley and at last we looked a threat - albeit until it came to applying the finish when we still looked blunt. But both are short of match fitness and their withdrawal led to a downturn in fortunes and Crawley grabbing the win.

The two were able to put in a longer shift yesterday and a solid first half was followed up by a positive second period, when Swindon were reduced to a brief flurry of chances at the start and some inevitable late pressure. But the little bit of class needed belonged to Lee Cook who applied a classy finish to Leon McSweeney's (remember him?) cross and it was enough to take the points. There is every reason to believe that we can get stronger game by game as he does.

What is concerning is that our fortunes are so closely linked to two players we've only been able to sign on short term contracts. We look so much better defensively when we have a genuine attacking threat and either Slade has just realised this or is more comfortable with a more positive line up with Cook and Rowlands in the side than he is with other players. Hopefully we can build on that and Cook and Rowlands will both stay for the season. However, if they are too good and others pick them up in January we need to be thinking of our plan C if we're not to plummet in the second half of the season again. Because there is one thing we can say with some certainty from the last 6 months - Russell's plan B doesn't work and we either need to replace the quality we'd lose or find a different system.

Moan, jeer, boo, moan

Even in a normal year I am more than happy to shut off all thoughts of Orient during the summer, especially after the sort of season we had last year. I have no interest in wild transfer speculation about players I can't pretend to have anything more than a vague recollection of maybe seeing play a couple of times. I gave up on pre-season friendlies a long time ago as they are almost uniformly dull and completely meaningless. Ironically after yesterday's postponement I sat and watched a 10 v 10, Orient v Orient training match and it was 100 times more competitive than any friendly I've attended at Brisbane Road.

Of course this isn't a normal year and the three weeks leading into the season were dominated by the Olympic Games in our back yard. I ended up being even more cut off from Orient news than ever before. The fact it had to end was bad enough but the fact it was to be followed up by a football season felt, by comparison, thoroughly depressing. A lot has been made of the "Olympic athlete good, professional footballer bad" debate but it goes deeper than that. It was the general atmosphere around the games at all of the venues (and I was lucky enough to be at most of them). In a nutshell I'd put it as the overwhelming positive and sporting atmosphere of the Olympic crowds, verses the cynical and pessimistic average football crowd. A prime example is the first morning of Jessica Ennis' heptathlon and the high jump competition. The support for Ennis and every British athlete was deafening and turned up to 11 for Ennis. However, as the competition drew to a conclusion with only a few athletes left jumping the crowd was behind every single one of them, whether they were British, Lithuanian or American. Clearances were cheered and failures met with disappointment.

Compare that to supporters of Chelsea and Liverpool, to name just two teams, offering unequivocal support for their players regardless of what they did. Or closer to home, Os fans jeering Brentford's injured goalkeeper at Griffin Park in 2011, taunting him because it meant he would miss playing at Wembley the following week. Football is a different sort of sport (which should be added to the long list of reasons as to why it shouldn't be part of the Olympics schedule) and no one expects fans to cheer on the other team. But it IS a sport and a sport whose image would be greatly improved if fans, players and managers remembered that every once in a while.

For every bad example I can recall there is a good one as well. Cyrille Regis being given a standing ovation at Brisbane Road when he was substituted playing for Chester City in his last season as a pro for one. It would be nice if the ratio was a bit more in favour of the positive though. I spent 7 or 8 years travelling to every away game in the supporters club coach but gave it up after the promotion season. Why would I do that after slogging around the 'cosy' League 2 grounds 'steeped in character'? Because even 2 or 3 games from the end of that season no one was enjoying it. They'd spend the entire return journeys complaining and moaning about what we'd just witnessed - as we sat in the top 3! I get enough of people spending all day moaning at work, I didn't need it at weekends as well and so I started to enjoy free Saturday's away from football.

My desire to see Brisbane Road a more positive and vibrant cathedral of sport is probably never more likely to fall on deaf ears than now. I've dragged myself to Brisbane Road twice and seen a dire performance against Stevenage off the back of an opening day thrashing at Tranmere and then a postponement followed by a lengthy thunderstorm. This off of the back of a dreadful season as we stumbled our way to safety and a summer that has seen ballers replaced by brawlers. Russell Slade has said he thinks that our league has moved from a division where passing can thrive, to a more physical competition. He has therefore got a like for like replacement for Stephen Dawson but doesn't think he can do the same with Matthew Spring.

All goodwill for the manager and most of the team was entirely used up last season and the fans are now on a short fuse. I don't have a problem with that, after last season I also expect to see a quick improvement. The only problem is that operating in that sort of negative environment is never conducive to success and we could end up all talking ourselves into a downward spiral that we're unable to stop. The biggest complaint has been the lack of any sort of creativity in the team and maybe the signing of Lee Cook to address that should lead to a short amnesty to at least give the team a chance. I came away from the Stevenage game without anything to feel positive about but the fact is that Russell Slade will be given a certain amount of time to get things right this season and I'd prefer we suspended disbelief and willed the team to succeed rather than wait for us to fail. Otherwise I and probably most fans will be dreading going to Brisbane Road for quite a while.

The Final Word

It would probably be easier to write a book about what went wrong with Orient's season than to try to cover it in a single blog. The only difficulty with writing it would be that so much appears to have gone wrong behind the scenes that trying to piece it together from the outside with any degree of certainty is impossible.

The signs were there right from the end of the season. The fact that Jamie Jones tweeted his surprise at the release of Scott McGleish doesn't suggest there was open revolt, it is more a reflection on twitter and how players use it. But you got the impression that there were two leaders in the dressing room, McGleish and Stephen Dawson. No one would slack off with Dawson around and no one at the club was bigger than McGleish. Maybe Russell Slade felt that the latter wasn't conducive to team spirit but I believe it had the effect of keeping everyone elses egos in check and the players all seemed to respect McGleish. But there are stories like that at the end of every season and they're soon forgotten about as the new season starts.

I was far more concerned when the players went off to Las Vegas at the start of the season, a reward for getting a replay with Arsenal and a great team building opportunity. The fact two players stayed behind was a cause for concern - in the first instance because it may have been a precursor to them leaving shortly and then later because it seemed odd that they simply didn't want to go on the trip. Revell's performances last season were solid, Rotherham (hardly a club awash with money) were willing to pay a transfer fee for him and we didn't have a replacement for him, all of which suggest he didn't leave because of a lack of ability. As the end of the first transfer window came, the warning signs from the Vegas trip came to fruition as he departed to Yorkshire. It may have simply been because a transfer fee was offered (which it could have been if you look at the later departure of Dawson), because he wanted away for his own reasons, the manager didn't want him in the squad or a combination of two or all of those reasons. There isn't necessarily a salacious story behind it, maybe the chemistry that was there last season simply wasn't this and it suited all parties.

As the season went on (although for Orient it didn't start until October), we continued to be a victim of our own success. The loan players who did so well for us last year were retained by Tottenham to feature in their Europa League campaign and then later loaned to Championship clubs. Charlie Daniels was the next to be poached, at least doubling his wages at Bournemouth and earning the club a decent transfer fee. I'm all for having a go at Ashley Cole for not being able to manage on his 'paltry' wages at Arsenal but it is a bit different on the sort of wages he'd be on at this level. Daniels would be an idiot to turn down an offer to play at Margate if they offered him £3k more than he was on at Orient. Then our biggest diamond was plucked by Barnsley and suddenly not only had we lost all but one of our truly outstanding players from one year ago, we lost the driving force in the heart of the team and Russell Slade had to find someone new to take his bins out. If you thought it couldn't get any worse we also lost a decent right back, still now spending time at Her Majesty's displeasure and thanks to injuries we've had more keepers at Brisbane Road than they have at London Zoo.

If there has been criticism of Slade that has been particularly harsh this year it is his record with signings and I don't think it is the quality of individual players that has been the problem. Some unsuccessful moves stand out. Jamie Cureton just couldn't cut it and didn't look able to hit the target even if it was doubled in size. Tom Clarke was very ordinary and there are simply no words to describe Calvin Andrew or the emergency signing of Paul Rachubka. But he has also signed player of the year Scott Cuthbert, Lee Cook probably the most talented person to grace the shirt this season, Syam Ben Youssef who shows great potential, Tony Craig who did well enough to be recalled to Millwall, Adam Reed who belied his young age and showed he is a tidy player already, Adam Chicksen also good enough to be recalled by MK Dons, Leon McSweeney who has played well out of position and was willing to play through the pain barrier at the end of the season and Jamal Campbell-Ryce who was key to what attacking play we did manage in the run in. I don't think that is a bad ratio of good to bad and there are only so many good players that the manager can be expected to keep replacing!

There are plenty of others who did OK but who I think have simply not played to their full potential due to playing out of position (Mooney, Leacock) injuries (Taiwo), suspension (Dickson, Taiwo, Dickson again) or simply by not being given the games to hit their stride (Laird). Everyone will have their hate figures and their favourites but I didn't start this blog to slate players or managers. Our problem was that last season we had some consistency, some truly outstanding performers and a good squad of players around them to support them. In the latter half of this season we've had too many supporting actors but not enough leading lights. I do believe the worst decision of the season was allowing Dawson to go, especially if the sole reason was to pick up a transfer fee for someone who was due to be out of contract. He was such a vital part of the team and that money would have been swallowed up by the losses incurred by getting relegated. Once he had had gone I don't believe Slade could have done much better than getting players or Reed and Taiwo's standard in. It simply isn't possible to loan in a player anywhere near as good as Dawson.

Russell Slade will probably never get the credit for digging the team out of a huge mess after a terrible start. Can anyone honestly say that on the 30 September 2011 they ever thought we'd get out of the relegation zone at all? Unfortunately though when we went into a double dip it nearly had disastrous consequences. Even with a lack of star players there is no way this squad of players should have finished where we did in the table and so you have to look at how the team was lined up and asked to play. For one thing we simply ran out of full backs and then latterly lost our best centre back Scott Cuthbert. As a result we started to look very shaky at the back and Slade's response was to be very cautious with his tactics. You're on a hiding to nothing when you find yourself having to plug things up to simply avoid conceding goals. Go out offensively and you're leaving a weak defence exposed. Try to protect them and you are just inviting pressure on yourselves and something will give eventually. That is exactly what happened game after game, as the floodgates regularly gave way around the hour mark.

Finally at the end of a season that saw him deprived of players over and over again the gaffer simply had no idea what his best team was anymore. Trying to find what players work best in what system in pre-season is easy (ish!), especially when you've spent the last six months studying the new players strengths and weaknesses and brought them in at a time of your choose. Doing that in front of the fans against competitive teams is a different kettle of fish. He ended up choosing eleven players who mightn't light up a game but he felt they were the players who wouldn't let him down, even if it meant playing them out of position. But again you are on a slippery slope when you find yourself having to select a team with that sort of negative mindset. Players like Leacock, who I thought looked fine in defence, were asked to play in midfield, which didn't particularly strengthen the midfield and weakened the defence. Jimmy Smith, whose greatest strength is scoring goals from midfield was asked to play in the holding position in front of the back four. He was unsuited to it and found himself following the ball because that is his game further up the park but it exposed the centre backs in the process. I don't think there were any right answers to the hand that the season dealt us, only part of which was of our own doing. We basically ended up in a mess that nearly overwhelmed us as the injuries and suspensions stacked up. We're not a top 5 team who could throw money at problems or have a squad prepared for any eventuality - an Orient manager is always going to have to make do and mend.

Somehow we have got to the end of the season with our League One status intact. This may well have been the toughest season of Russell Slade's managerial career and he will be stronger for it - after a break! The fact that he held on until the end of the season suggests he has Barry Hearn's full support and will have been scouting and planning for next season in the knowledge he will still be here. Forget the fact he has a two year contract, there is no way in the world that doesn't contain release clauses that would allow a parting of the ways without paying up that full 2 years. It is funny how Barry gets accused of being too hard-nosed and then too generous with contracts almost in the same breath! Slade isn't infallible but I trust him when it comes to bringing players in, building a squad and getting them to play way above expectations. Last year didn't happen by luck. I also believe that whatever he got wrong and right there are other managers who wouldn't have coped with everything that was thrown at him and would have either walked away or turned on the players or fans. At all times Russell has behaved with dignity and composure, despite clearly hurting that nothing he tried seemed to work. The best thing about getting to the end of the season is that the slate gets wiped clean, bridges can be mended and everyone gets a chance to reflect on what could have been done better. Luckily the break is long enough to fit it all in.

The one plea I would make is that we don't go into next season talking about how long Slade has to get it right. That sort of pressure will only have a negative effect on everyone at the club. Enjoy your summer and genuine heartfelt thanks to everyone who has read these ramblings and said nice things about the blog. It really does mean a lot and makes the inordinate amount of time it takes to work out what the hell is wrong with Leyton Orient all worthwhile.

They Thought It Was All Over

The deflating nature of Orient's collapse against a poor Yeovil side obscures the fact that the Os are in a better position than I predicted with two games of the season left. 3 games ago I looked at the fixtures of each of the teams and could easily see Orient in the bottom four after a defeat to Yeovil. Unfortunately my prediction that Orient would only pick up 1 point from the next three games was correct (against Yeovil rather than Exeter as it turned out) but on the plus side Wycombe have done the same despite having winnable games against Oldham and Chesterfield. No doubt right now Wycombe fans feel the same as Orient's- that their team is in a position it deserves to be in.

What appeared to be another negative Orient home team selection turned out to actually be quite positive - in a way. Although lining up with an apparent front pairing of Jamal Campbell-Ryce and Kevin Lisbie, the former either dropped deep or went wide looking for the ball. In effect Lisbie was still leading the line by himself but he was supported with Campbell-Ryce filling the gulf between him and the midfield and Matthew Spring getting forward as much as possible. Campbell-Ryce's role had the added bonus of also bringing Dean Cox into the game in the right positions as Cox overlapped with the Jamaican whenever he was on the ball. Sadly Orient's crossing wasn't all it could have been but when Cox did come up with the sort of delivery we expect it fell plum on Lisbie's head for the first goal.

There was so much more to the Orient performance than formations as they looked to fight their way out of danger. Matthew Spring deserves huge credit for the effort he put in and the team followed suit. Spring was provided cover for the back four when he was needed, played the simple short balls in the centre of the park when we needed a cool head and got up to support Lisbie when we attacked. It was a superb effort from the captain, leading by example when it was needed most. For the first time in months the rest of the team showed the same kind of energy and they deserved their half time lead. Despite Jamie Jones making two world class saves, Orient made most of the running and should have extended their lead before half time. Spirit and determination overcame the deficiencies that have plunged Orient into a relegation fight in a scrappy first half. It was obvious to everyone that we needed to continue playing at the same tempo in the second half if they were to enjoy similar success.

Of course we didn't and Yeovil looked surprised to be back in the game, spurning some early chances. From the start of the second half the signs were there that time wasting and slowing the game down wasn't the way to go. Orient ended up looking like England in an international tournament, abandoning the style of play that worked for them in favour of something that exposes their weaknesses. We started losing possession and making silly mistakes, seemingly losing their focus as soon as they took their foot off the pedal.

Ironically having weathered the early rally what should have been the high point of Orient's dismal season ended up being the worst thing that could have happened. When Lisbie applied the finish to the easiest goal he will ever score the relief around Brisbane Road was palpable. Wycome were losing, Orient were in front by two goals and Yeovil heads went down. What could go wrong now? Orient started enjoying some possession again and anyone who had never watched Orient before would have thought we were coasting. Unfortunately whilst Spring had lead by example early in the game, we still lack the Stephen Dawson character in the team who would have rollicked anyone losing concentration with the victory still to be sealed. When Yeovil scraped one goal back it was inevitable that before the final whistle went there would be a crucial moment that would settle the game one way or another. The rest exists only in snapshots in my mind, like the memories of a nightmare. Russell Slade making a needless substitution to eat up some time. The team losing organisation as a result. Conceding a corner as two defenders got in each others way. Every single Orient player back in the penalty area to defend it, despite Yeovil still having players back. Yeovil having free possession when the corner was cleared because every Orient player was in the penalty area but then every one of them watching as the ball was played back in and turned in for the equaliser.

The performance should give Orient fans more hope than at any time in the last few weeks because the team finally showed some fight and got themselves into a winning position. But they are mentally fragile, too scared of defeat to confidently chase the win we need to confirm League One status. There is no doubt they care, as evidenced by the frenetic Russell Slade in the technical area and the reaction at the final whistle. I think I'd have been more upset with the team aimlessly wandering around clapping fans than by them storming off the field having thrown away their lifeline. I'd rather have a four point gap than be sitting in the bottom four right now but there is a high probability that if we continue to rely on others results, we'll stumble and fall inches short of the finishing line. In the last 9 seasons 2 teams have survived with 48 points, the other 7 all required at least 50. No one has survived with less than 48 points since Oxford United in 2000. Being relegated with 47 points this year may require an unlikely sequence of results but history suggests that stranger things have happened.

Russell Slade : The man under the cap

There is a cycle of emotions around every Orient game at the moment. It starts at the final whistle of each game when a tsunami of vilification pours forth. Before the players have even reached the dressing room they've been torn apart in the stands and on the internet. It lasts for a few days. Any comment on manager Russell Slade tends to finish with "...and he can take his cap with him". Any player who comes out on twitter and offers apologies is quickly back in favour (apart from a few who think they should do their talking on the pitch). CEO Matt Porter typically recieves a whole heap of abuse for not giving up on the team - until he responds to comments, when he is then praised for staying positive and holding things together. This tends to be the turning point of the week and slowly the players are being exhorted to give it their all because the fans are behind them and generally people want Slade to stick his cap on his head again and not anywhere else. There is the rare added bonus of an ex-player sticking his oar in and getting in a tete-a-tete (sans chapeau) with a current player about who cares the most about the club. I didn't see who the winner was but I guess it wasn't anyone who in twenty years time will still be paying to watch the team play, whatever division they are in. Sadly at the moment the cycle is completed when the Os concede three goals again and lose and it starts all over again.

Some of this is entirely understandable and justified. No one at the club is pretending that recent results even come close to being acceptable. Generally during games fans have resisted getting on the players backs but players and management have accepted that, in the aftermath of games at least, it is hard to remain positive in the face of repeated disappointment. People need to get it out of their system before they are ready to look forward to the next game.

What surprises me though is the vitriol that directed at players and management who were loved so recently for bringing us our best finish in nigh on 20 years. There isn't a single fan who isn't considering how they feel about Russell Slade right now. We are in a tailspin and everyone is fighting hard and trying everything to pull us round, when what we need are cool calm heads. At this stage of the season there is no time to step back and take a deep breath, big games are coming once or twice a week. I am not in that place yet but if I felt Slade needed to go to give us a chance to stay up it would be with a heavy heart and extreme reluctance.

For others it seems a lot easier and as the red mist descends all of the good things that Slade has done are obscured. Some people seem to out and out hate him and would kick him without a thought. Others seem to take a perverse pleasure in our forutnes (so long as it doesn't actually get as far as being relegated) because it gives them licence to vent their frustrations. It's often said that football fans enjoy complaining as much as they do celebrating. I stopped going to every away game after the promotion season because at the very end of that season people were still complaining as if we were at the other end of the table. I thought that if you couldn't enjoy the run in at the end of that season then what was the point? Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise. As I write this on a Saturday evening, I'm certain that if I turned on any terrestial TV station right now there will be a talent show on and another group of twnetysomethings (lets call them Christians) are being torn apart by internet Lions. Pardon me a Victor Meldrew moment, but it is what seems to pass for entertainment these days and as the Christians/Lions comment suggests, it is primative. People feel better about themselves when they are tearing someone apart more than they do from anything constructive or good.

If you want you can disregard how much pleasure and pride Slade gave us last season as we beat Arsenal 1-1 and put together an unbeaten run not many amongst the 4,000 faithful had seen in their lifetime. My impression of Russell Slade, who I've only met once after the Arsenal game, is one of a thoroughly decent intelligent man who speaks quietly but with authority. He has made tough decisions but doesn't appear to be the sort of person who would take any sort of pleasure from seeing a family man. In return he is faced with hundreds who would gladly see him put out of his job without a second thought for the longer term future of of him or the club. It is the default position of football fans to call for the managers head at the earliest opportunity and the callousness of it is deeply unpleasant.

When I was younger I was untroubled by such thoughts. Peter Eustace was our manager and we had gone from play off contenders to lower mid-table also rans. A set of barking mad programme notes about wagon trains from the Yorkshireman was followed by his postmatch quote following a defeat at Brighton, that if Eustace was in the trenches he wouldn't want his players standing behind him. I wanted Eustace to be shown the door and as far as I was concerned his cloth cap would come in handy for begging because he wasn't fit for a job in football. A few weeks later I came across Eustace during half time of another game we were on our way to losing. I was seething at another poor performance and here was the clown responsible. He looked up, smiled and said "wrap up lads, it's getting colder out there". Suddenly the cartoon Eustace evaporated and I saw a human being who despite having the troubles of the world on his shoulders had time for a kind and friendly word for a horrible teenager. When he finally left the club I felt relief (for him as much as us) but took no pleasure in his departure.

I felt the same with someone much more popular with me if not others, Tommy Taylor. I liked Tommy a lot, as a man and a manager (if not as a man manager!). It wasn't a feeling shared by many fans, who were ready to call for his head after a single defeat let alone the kind of run we are on at the moment. People who complain that managers these days say nothing in interviews used to lambast Tommy for his frank and forthright style rather than welcome the fact he'd talk openly with anyone. Despite liking him a lot as a person I did wonder if it was time for him to step down after the Millennium Stadium play off defeat and my reservations were realised when he was sacked in the middle of a slump the following season. Of course resigning from Leyton Orient isn't the same as being sacked by Manchester City and so of course he didn't resign from employment even if he did feel that his best chance to get us promoted had gone. I do know that Tommy was an Orient man and he'd have loved getting us promoted as much as any fan. I also know that in the last months of his reign it wasn't unusual to see him sitting on the stairs in the club, wracked with back pain - caused I am certain as much by stress as by an actual physical ailment. Unseen by the fans was a man as vulnerable as any other, regardless of his bravado. Throughout his time at the club he was forced to put a brave face on the fact he was so unpopular but I am sure it ate him up inside. Yet it didn't stop him coming back to enjoy the success of two of his former players finally getting us out of League Two. I can't imagine many managers coming back to the club in such circumstances and it said a lot for both him and Martin Ling for inviting him.

Russell Slade the football manager has put together one Orient squad that came close to reaching the play offs,  in a division filled with teams with greater financial resources than us. A victim of his own success he lost two of his best players. Without them Dean Cox has been expected to work miracles by himself. On top of that the young goalkeeper who was also linked with move stayed but then has been out injured all season. Some of the players he has brought in haven't worked out, others aren't anywhere near as bad as they have been made out to be. If we can scrape ourselves out of this mess then he has as much chance as anyone else of putting together another squad that can fight its way up the table. He has done it once before after all. It is a much bigger gamble to go out and get yet another manager. Successful people learn from their mistakes and I'd much rather see him do that here than anywhere else, whilst a new manager joins us and starts from square one. Changing our line up game by game has got us into this mess. In the long term changing managers frequently will have the same sort of effect.

If Slade does go it'll be off the back of a set of results that are difficult to argue with because only a spell of good form mid-season has stopped this being a catastrophic season. But whatever happens to Slade the manager, Slade the man has been treated shabbily. Football is more than a sport to many of us and yet we treat the human beings involved in it as if it was just one big game.

If....Orient are staying up

If the season was to end tomorrow not many Orient fans would be too sorry. Its the time of the season when teams with something to play for start looking at their opponents' remaining fixtures and current form, trying to work out how many points they are going to need and where they will come from. In the hope of not having to spend the next few weeks fretting about Orient's upcoming games I have done exactly that. And it's GOOD NEWS as I predict that despite a nervous month for Orient, Oldham and Bury fans the final table will look much like it does now. If...

As things currently stand every team from 16th place Preston downwards are currently embroiled in the relegation battle. I am sure that Preston and Oldham would like to think they are safe as they are currently 6 points clear of danger and need 4 points from 5 games in order to be safe. However, Preston have only managed 1 win in their last 12 games and would be sliding down the slippery slope even quicker if not for their ability to regularly hold teams to draws. Similarly Oldham have managed 2 wins and 8 defeats over their last ten games as they've edged closer and closer to the relegation zone. The two teams face each other in a huge game on 21 April, the winner of which will probably be safe before the end of the month. I suspect it'll be Preston, who have struggled so much due to playing teams at the top and they have been able to win against the lower sides. That will throw Oldham into a the fight and they'll be forced to battle right up to the end of the season. I think they will struggle in their next three against Sheffield Wednesday, Wycombe and Preston, before picking up the points they need against Bury and Carlisle.

Obviously the other team completely out of sorts are Orient. I am sure there is a Wycombe fan somewhere sitting looking at our record and thinking that we pick up the odd away win and should be able to do so against either Exeter or Hartlepool. It is a different kettle of fish when you've been following our fortunes week in and out and are now wondering where our next win will come from. We're always pessimistic about our own team but trying to be rational about it I don't expect us to lose every game any more than I expect Charlton and Sheffield United to breeze through and win all of theirs. I still think we'll be stumbling right through to the end though. Despite the improved performance against Notts County it is hard to see us getting anything at home, which makes the away games against Exeter and Hartlepool crucial. I fancy the Exeter game to be a stalemate because both sides have been unable to find the net and the Grecians will put up one last fight even though they are all but relegated. The vital points will come against Hartlepool who have had a rotten time since having little to play for in mid-table obscurity. Anything against Sheffield United would be a bonus and Yeovil are capable of winning away and will capitalise on our home woes. I would expect Orient to reach the last day of the season on 50 points - in theory enough but still too close to comfort. A final home draw against Rochdale (who like Exeter seem beyond help now) should be enough with Wycombe suffering from having the most difficult of run ins.

Wycombe are the team I expect to move the most as they face two games against struggling teams before playing stronger teams in their final three games. On Monday they face Chesterfield, practically relegated already and on a roll of three straight defeats since their Wembley appearance in the JPT Final. A win will enable Wycombe to cruise up to the Os, before going past us with a home win against Oldham. From there I think it gets just a bit too hard from them. They face trips to Charlton and Sheffield Wednesday, the latter winning regularly at home, the former stuttering but managing to beat teams in the bottom half of the table. That leaves a home fixture against Notts County who we have seen get results despite not looking very good away from home. Wycombe may get a point against the Magpies but it won't be enough and their fate will be sealed at Hillsborough on the last day.

That is if Bury pick up the four points they need to scramble to safety. Bury have had a difficult time on their travels of late and will be grateful that they are the only side in the relegation battle with 3 home games in their last 5. They should get the points they need from their next two home games, against Colchester (who have been drawing a lot of away games but losing to teams who still have something to play for) and against Bournemouth who are in freefall and losing for fun on their travels. They also face Stevenage on the last day of the season, another draw specialist team, who will probably have their eyes on the holiday's more than most after a tumultuous season.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Dean Smith at Walsall this summer, especially if the Orient board take a long hard look at Russell Slade's position, regardless of where we end up. For two seasons now he has shown he can motivate teams at the sharp end of the season to fight their way out of trouble. The WalsallWalsall are on a terrific run, beating the teams they need to (and even taking 4 points from the Sheffield clubs), regularly winning at home and drawing away. On Friday they showed the sort of determination we'd expect from a team managed by our old skipper, coming from behind to beat Chesterfield. On paper they have a difficult run in, that includes Charlton, Huddersfield and MK Dons. However, they've shown enough lately to make you believe that they can pick up a point at the Valley and follow it up with a win against struggling Tranmere next Saturday. Draws away at Exeter and Huddersfield, who have drawn most of their recent away games, will see them effectively safe before the last day. Even if they're not MK Dons have struggled to win at home and I wouldn't put it past the Saddlers to get the result they need to if it comes to it.

Unfortunately (in the circumstances) football isn't as predictable as we'd like i to be but it does show just how little we need to do to secure our safety. The opportunities are there for the Os and if we can't take the points we need from the games we have with the players we have at our disposal then sadly we don't deserve to stay up. Come on you Os!

Projected final table

16. Walsall 55
17. Preston 54
18. Oldham 52
19. Bury 51
20. Leyton Orient 51
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21. Wycombe 49
22. Rochdale 41
23. Exeter 39
24. Chesterfield 36

Why Russell Slade's got no hair

The past week has shown why football managers all end up grey, bald, crazy or bitter (or a combination of all of the above). If there is one particular rod that has been used to beat Russell Slade with this season it is George Porter. Fans want to see exciting players and there is nothing more exciting than someone who can run and beat players at pace. When it results in chances being created and goals being scored it is enough for fans and they want to see their name on the teamsheet each week. After a decent run in the team at the start of the season many have been dismayed that since November Porter's appearances became as rare as Jonathan Tehoue visiting the salad bar (welcome back Jon, we love you really) .

That was until Tuesday night at Oldham, when the latest new Orient line up featured Porter from the start. By all accounts he had an excellent game, culminating in being the provider of the winning goal and a precious three points in the battle to stay out of the relegation fight. Of course this was all the evidence that was required to prove that Russell has been wrong to leave him out all season. This is the way fans always think, they'd never countenance the idea that players having to bide their time, be patient and prove they are a team player contributes to the way they perform when they do get in the team.

In handling young, precocious talents managers face an almost impossible task, safe in the knowledge that 99% of the time they'll be proved wrong in hindsight. If the player does well the manager was too cautious, if he fails to develop it is because he was held back. I prefer to think that the young players who never really made it at Orient but have gone on to do well at a higher level have done so because of the road they travelled. They might never have become the players they have without being spurred on by disappointments early in their career. Maybe if we indulge Porter and act like he is already the bees knees he'll be a Jabo Ibehre and bounce around the benches of League One teams. If things are a bit harder for him and he has the maturity to learn some hard lessons early on he might go on to a higher standard, without having to rebuild his career at a lower level. Slade's handling of him could mean that Orient is the springboard for that career, rather than a Conference team.

Yesterday was a tough afternoon for the kid and despite working hard he didn't see enough of the ball. Unfortunately he showed one flash on inexperience when a quickly taken free kick caught Porter napping and even with his electric pace he was unable to chase back and Charlton almost literally walked the ball into the back of the net. To his credit he didn't seek to blame anyone else, he just turned and walked head up ready for the re-start, simply hoping to make up for his mistake rather than deflect blame. Another lesson learned and an error I'd bet he won't repeat for a while. It did remind me of a couple of things told to me by Paul Clark, Tommy Taylor's assistant, that showed how being an armchair manager is easy but the real thing is just a series of headaches.

The first was the simple stat that in one season Orient had conceded nine goals from set pieces as a result of Jabo losing his man. You can bet your life that everyone will remember a run that he made or spectacular goal he scored in that season but will be oblivious to the fact that his net value to the team was negative. The other was a story about Iyseden Christie, a player I loved for his unpredictability at one end because defences didn't know how to handle him. It was less of an asset at the other. In one game as he prepared to come on as substitute Clark sat with him and went through who he was to mark at set pieces. As he stood on the touchline they did it again and as he ran on they stood and pointed where he was to go as the Os prepared to defend a corner. The corner was taken and the opposition scored as a result of Iyseden not picking up his marker!

Only the manager and coaches would even be aware of that because they see the whole picture and try to balance their teams as a result. Slade still doesn't seem to be able to get that balance right with the players currently at his disposal and we look ineffective going forward. That doesn't mean that there is a simple answer in the shape of George Porter. We've been hammered enough times this year to see that getting it wrong defensively can have disastrous consequences but somehow Slade has to find a way to set a time up that isn't vulnerable at the back but is capable of threatening at the other end.

More cool heads, less squeaky bums

On the one hand a narrow 0-1 defeat to Sheffield Wednesday flattered Orient yesterday and yet on the other Wednesday probably didn't deserve much more than their solitary goal. In the grand scheme of things it is probably fair to say that, neither set of fans left the ground particularly satisfied albeit the visitors had the comfort of three points in the bag. Only those in the dressing room really know whether the manager has sent out a negative team or whether the players haven't carried out his instructions but yesterday's post-match comments indicate that Russell Slade sent the team out with very modest ambitions. It seems that Slade hoped to keep it at 0-0 or even 0-1 for as long as possible and hope that we would be able to do a smash and grab at the other end.

After leaking bucketfuls of goals in recent games Slade's caution is understandable but there are ways to improve your resiliency without reducing your attacking options to practically nothing. Orient defended heroically but had to do so because the tactics invited Wednesday to attack at will in the belief that that we could absorb the pressure heaped upon us. With the only 'out ball' being a long punt up to Lisbie who had four towering defenders around him at all times, the Os had little hope of retaining possession and creating anything themselves. It has been rare for Orient to have as many attacking players in the team as they did yesterday and yet the likes of Cox, Campbell-Ryce and Jimmy Smith were barely able (or allowed) to get out of their own half, their defensive duties paramount.

None of which says very much for Sheffield Wednesday, who will be happy with the win but not the performance and a better team might have hammered us. Wednesday were everything you'd expect of a team constructed by Gary Megson - almost to a man, tall, strong and quick and Orient were simply unable to compete with them physically. Skipper Rob Jones gave the most dominating defensive display I've seen at Brisbane Road since Brian Kilcline visited with Darlington at the end of his career. At times it seemed that he was the only person to touch the ball in the Wednesday half.  But for all that they created very few clear cut chances. You can defend with as many players as you like but everyone to work hard and stick to their tasks, which every single one of the Orient players did. Cuthbert and Chorley were immense and whilst his pace was exposed on a couple of occasions, Terrell Forbes stuck to it and almost completely nullified the threat of Michail Antonio. Paul Rachubka was rarely fully extended and most of the saves he made were comfortable, although he made them look anything but with a few more spills that put hearts in mouths. Unfortunately his best save, from a point blank header by Reda Johnson resulted in the same player turning in the rebound for the only goal.

This final stretch at the end of a disappointing season is going to require more cool heads and fewer squeaky bums. The Os have an unenviable run in and still have to face 3 of the current top 6 over the next 6 games, with Notts County thrown in for good measure. From the outside a degree of desperation seems to have crept into the decision making of the management. The last two games have seen highly questionable substitutions, with Campbell-Ryce and George Porter employed as centre-forwards - whilst centre forward David Mooney played in Campbell-Ryce's position on the wing at MK Dons! Even less understandably all of the tactical changes yesterday seemed designed to allow Jimmy Smith to stay on the pitch, despite him having little impact on the game. I think Smith attracts a lot of unfair stick but it wasn't his day and the team set up wasn't suited to his game. Aside from the goalkeeping problem I think we have a squad that shouldn't be getting dragged into a relegation battle, although the sooner that Ryan Dickson is fit again the better. But we've seen the team shuffled game after game, as if at this crucial stage of the season Slade is still trying to find out what his best team is. This isn't pre-season and we haven't got the time to find our best eleven.  With the late introduction of a number of loanees to cover for injuries, suspensions and departures I think Slade has been drawn into constant firefighting and the bigger picture has become obscured. He and the players need to regroup and focus on what is going to be required to get the points required to stay out of trouble, plus a few more for the sake of comfort.

The same applies to fans. After the game a large minority ran out of patience with Slade and decide that for them, it was time for a change. Slade was appointed manager at a similar stage of the season in 2010 and some believe that is required again if the Os are to scrape out of trouble. For one thing I can't see see him leaving unless Orient's freefalling form completely nose dives. With the games that are coming up it is entirely possible for that to happen. It might be difficult but the fans may have to swallow a couple more days like yesterday and avoid pouring oil on the fire. The games against Yeovil and especially Rochdale and Exeter