17 August 2011

Leyton Orient 1 Wycombe Wanderers 3, 16/8/11

A game which... showed Orient fans that perhaps the pre-season dreams of the play-offs were as wildly misguided as Jedward believing they have a good chance of getting Kate Winslet home for a threesome at the next BAFTA after-party.

For all the bluster of the 30-minute spell before half-time in which Orient dominated, there really weren't many clear-cut chances and, as I recall, not a single shot on target from either striker. Then, once 3-1 down there was so little bite to Orient's fightback that the Wycombe players must have felt like they were being lightly nudged by a blancmange.

Moment of class... Just the one - Dean Cox's goal, swept in expertly from the edge of the penalty box. Tiny was the chief instigator of Orient's one bright period of the game, swarming all over the pitch like a toddler who's just downed eight pints of Sunny Delight.

Moment of madness... The moment in the second half at which Jamie Cureton, with clear sight of goal in the Wycombe penalty area, elected to instead delicately chip the ball into thin air, perhaps hoping that a freak gust of wind had more chance of putting the ball in the net than one of his Orient teammates.

Knight in shining armour... Asking who was Orient's man of the match is a bit like trying to choose your favourite member of JLS. The answer, of course, is none of them. Dawson ran around a lot, Spring was better than on Saturday and Daniels did a least look vaguely threatening on the left. But let's give it to David Mooney for at least creating a bit of impetus after coming on as a substitute.

Pantomime horse... A few candidates for this one, I'm afraid, but let's plump for Revell and Cureton, who managed to show such a lack of understanding it was like watching a conversation between Stephen Hawking and Kerry Katona.

In the dug out... "We shot ourselves in the foot," said Big Russ after the game, perhaps explaining the defending of Elliot Omozusi, who was turned inside out so many times by Wycombe's Joel Grant that he'll probably go home and find he's wearing his internal organs outside of his body.

A word on the visitors... Wycombe, driven by an impressive performance by Shameless's Frank Gallagher - sorry, Gareth Ainsworth - took their chances and closed the game down effectively. Joel Grant looked to have a bit of class about him too.

Meanwhile, on Twitter... Big news on Twitter this week: after a club directive of some sort or other, Jamie Jones, Dean Cox, Alex Revell and George Porter have packed their bags and ridden off into the social networking sunset. Thankfully no one seems to have told Elliot Omozusi, who today broke from tradition by tweeting something that almost made grammatical sense. 'Dappy! Pull it pull it pull it!' he wrote, no doubt stomping round his bedroom to N-Dubz while his mum banged on the door telling him to keep the noise down.

Lesson for the day: Let's give credit where credit is due - Orient certainly shut down the opposition's opportunities to score 30-yard screamers, a lesson learnt from the previous two games. Now all they need to do is to prevent free headers in the box and needless penalties, and the defence will be as solid as Alex Reid and Chantelle Houghton's new relationship. Oh, hang on...
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