11 January 2015

Leyton Orient 0 Fleetwood Town 1, 10/1/15

A game which... served as a timely reality check for Leyton Orient. After back-to-back victories against two of the worst sides in the division there was much posturing about a push for the play-offs. Nothing wrong with a bit of ambition, but as things stand it's about as convincing as taking a light stroll up Buckhurst Hill then claiming to be fully qualified to ascend Mount Everest.

Is there even a hill in Buckhurst? Doesn't matter, for what was evident from this flaccid loss to Fleetwood is that this is a team still struggling to gel – no surprise really given they're on their fourth manager of the season – and that before they go climbing any mountains they should probably learn to pass to each other a bit better.

Jump off your seat moment... The injury-time moment when Stephen Crainey inexplicably bundled Bradley Pritchard off the ball one yard inside the penalty area almost as if he believed the Orient midfielder was an actual threat. That the referee and linesman then bottled the decision prevented Gianvito Plasmati from converting a spot kick equaliser and hence booking himself a place in the starting XI for the certain loss to Preston on Friday and a guest appearance on the hit Italian reality show Leyton Orient: All'interno Del Circo.

Romain Vincelot 
Give that man a medal... Today Romain Vincelot dived into the sea of mediocrity in which his team mates were swimming and tried to single-handedly drag them all onto the shore like a heroic lifeguard. By which I mean the pitch was a bit wet and the Frenchman was slightly better than everyone else. Normal metaphor service will resume next week.

Taxi for... Fabio Liverani has a novel way of incentivising Andrea Dossena to actually do his job (outside of the, you know, £12k or so a week he's paid to do so). Whenever the Italian left back made a mistake the manager very conspicuously asked Gary Sawyer to warm up. That meant Gary Sawyer had to warm up a lot, because Dossena had his poorest game so far in an Orient shirt. (Case for the prosecution: Fleetwood's only two proper chances outside of their goal came as a result of the Italian losing his man.) Still, none of that stopped Stevenage-based graphic design agency Alchemy Creations awarding him man of the match, almost as if they were trying to inject an element of dark satirical irony. Either that or they weren't actually present.

"Fuck the technical shit"... "Two penalties, big house, in the box" said Fabio Liverani after the game, suggesting that he's already more intelligible than Chris Dagnall when speaking English. Fair play to him though for trying 19 different formations during the game, albeit to no discernible effect. He's passionate too and when Orient conceded he obliterated a water bottle, screamed "Lowry! Lowry! Lowry!" repeatedly and threw his hands up to the Gods as if to say "What have I done to deserve this defence?" Got himself sent off too, which was pretty punchy. I think I kind of like him...

Meanwhile on Twitter... Respect to the boys at E10 Mess podcast who literally stalked our Il Presidente Francesco Becchetti all the way to Italy and found him discussing intimate details about potential Orient transfer targets with one of his most trusted advisors.
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