03 April 2012

Leyton Orient 1 Huddersfield Town 3, 3/4/12

A game in which... Orient conceded three goals so soft that if you bagged them up you could flog 'em as a new brand of ultra-fluffy cotton wool. That aside, as in Saturday's game against Charlton, the Os did enjoy some spells of possession, but once again the inability to turn this into anything like a meaningful attack means that Russell Slade's side literally have no hope of winning matches at the moment. Indeed, the manager seems to be so lacking in ideas that if Lionel Messi were to turn up and offer his services, Slade would simply shrug his shoulders and mutter, 'Hey, maybe you can repaint the changing rooms?'

Moment of magic... Just the one, Matt Spring's goal. Orient have a long-standing tradition of endangering low-flying pigeons with their goal attempts from balls that break loose on the edge of the box (Andy Harris, I'm looking at you) but tonight the former Charlton man expertly brought the ball down and fired it into the net.

Paul Rachubka
Moment of madness... Pretend goalkeeper Paul Rachubka was back to his old tricks tonight, in particular for Huddersfield's second goal. Though he might have expected the professional footballers in front of him to adequately defend an innocuous throw-in, that's no excuse to let the ball squirm under him as if he was trying to use two lumps of butter to apprehend an eel.

Knight in shining armour... Ryan Dickson, whose battling display could herald an innovative new era of tactics at Brisbane Road where left-footed players play on the left-hand side of the pitch.

Pantomime horse... Not that he was particularly worse than anyone else, but the ongoing ineffectiveness of Marc Laird is symbolic of the malaise in Russell Slade's team. The manager has thrown numerous players into central midfield this season - Taiwo, Reed, Clarke, Leacock, for example - without much success and the lack of a player to get on the ball and drive forward (like, say, Stephen Dawson) is surely a big reason behind Orient's inability to create anything in the final third of the pitch this season.

In the dug out... Perhaps the most telling point of the evening was a full two minutes after Kevin Lisbie had come on for Marc Laird, when Matt Spring and Jimmy Smith were still asking Russell Slade what revised formation they were supposed be playing. The answer, of course, was the classic '4-no-width-Coxy-runs-anywhere-but-lump-it-to-Moons-and-hope-for-the-best' formation that's served the Os so well this season.

Huddersfield's team spirit
A word on the opposition... Huddersfield spent much of the match bickering between themselves like a bunch of teenage girls who'd all accidentally turned up to the school disco wearing the same Top Shop dress. Not that this stopped them easing to victory over Orient - as they did last season - with the help of prize weapon Jordan Rhodes.

Meanwhile on Twitter... Orient's resident women's rights campaigner and ardent feminist George Porter was up to his old tricks this week, tweeting: 'The awkward moment when a girl dosent pick the iron in monopoly! ha' to his followers. Next week: George shows his support for animal welfare by decapitating his cat.

Lesson for the day... THERE ARE NO MORE LESSONS! Really, with the squad we've now got at our disposal our options to change anything are gone it's hard to see where the next point is going to come from. It almost makes you wish Jonathan Tehoue could come back. Almost.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...