17 October 2015

Leyton Orient 2 Oxford United 2, 17/10/15

A game in which... Orient's first half performance wasn't just dire, it was a stain on the whole of human history, like the Crusades, the Black Death or Amanda Holden. In fact, it was worse than that: it was a display of Fabio Liverani-esque ineptitude. That the Os rallied in the second half, showed some fight and came away with a point should be commended, but let that not paper over the cracks. Seven points from our last eight games is relegation form.

Jump off your seat moment... A first senior goal for youngster Scott Kashket, who was just a twinkle in his father's eye when Orient last played Oxford in League Two, nine years ago. He won the man of the match award in the Supporters Club too – quite something given he was only on the pitch for 43 seconds – and was soaked in Champagne by Mr Becchetti for his troubles. What's the president going to do if Kashket actually wins us a match one day – piss on him?

Give that man a medal... Ollie Palmer continues to confound. Put him in the starting line up and he trudges up and down like an ageing donkey giving sporadic rides to doleful toddlers in a faded seaside town. Bring him on at half time – as Ian Hendon did today – and he's a thoroughbred racehorse, all rippling muscles and lustrous hair. What I'm saying here by way of equestrian analogy is that he won a lot of headers and generally managed to point them in the right direction.

Taxi for... Plenty of candidates for this one today, including woeful performances from Dean Cox and Blair Turgott, but let's instead point the finger of shame at Mathieu Baudry. Today, not content with just a bandage on his head, he also added a Petr Cech-style protector. Next week he'll also include a sombrero and by the end of the season will play each game in the guise of an overloaded hatstand at a low-rent department store. I say this because presumably all this headgear is obscuring his vision: why else would have he simply planted the ball in front of Kemar Roofe for Oxford's first goal, then randomly scattergunned the ball around for the rest of the match?

In the dugout... Imagine this: you've gone into hospital for a routine wisdom teeth removal
operation, and during it the surgeon inadvertently severs your jugular vein, but then just about manages to sew it up again before you die from massive blood loss. Would you praise him for saving your life, or chastise him for almost killing you in the first place? Today Ian Hendon was that surgeon, making a catastrophic error in his team selection (4-4-2 but with no Payne or James?!) but then atoning for his error with some bold half-time substitutions.

Meanwhile on Twitter... When he's not spraying people with Champagne or allegedly laundering money through failed Albanian hydro-electric schemes, what does our esteemed president get up to? That's right, he leers out of car windows like a maniac – or, as TLC might say, hangs out the passenger side of his best friend's ride, trying to holler at Orient fan Billy Herring.