Leyton Orient 0 Luton Town 1, 5/3/16

A game in which... It was proved scientifically, philosophically and legally that Orient are still just a bit shit. Not chronic-dysentry-call-999-NOW! shit as we were under Ian Hendon. More like the type of shit that clings defiantly to the toilet bowl despite repeated flushes. Will.i.am, were it in human form.

Now, credit to Kevin Nolan for mostly shoring up the defence – Luton only had the one big chance really – but he still has a big job to do to eke out some sort of guile, some creativity, some surprise from this largely uninspiring squad.

Jump off your seat moment... Is it Neymar? Is it Ronaldo? Is it the final of the World Dressage Championships? No, it's Jerome Binnom-Williams doing step-overs in ultra slow-motion in an ill-fated attempt bamboozle the Luton defence. That said, the left-back actually looks half-decent at times and could well be the difference between Orient finishing 11th or 12th come the end of the season. 

Give that man a medal... Scott Cuthbert. He had Ollie Palmer so deeply in his pocket that it's likely he'll not notice he's there again until he eventually sticks his kit in the washing machine and finds a bearded bloke in a red shirt clambering out of it then theatrically throwing himself to the ground claiming a head injury.  

Taxi for... Sean Clohessy. I'm presuming that his selection at right midfield is based on the infinite monkey theorem which states that if you sit a primate in front of a typewriter for an infinite amount of time at some point it will inadvertently produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Similarly, were he given until the end of the universe, it is conceivable that Sean Clohessy might at some point put a decent ball into the box. Didn't happen today, mind, so instead the former Southend man offered a fan out a half-time. As you were. 

Nolan-watch... Imagine this scenario: Kevin Nolan, on a day off and craving some peace and quiet, goes to an east London park with the intention of calmly completing a jigsaw puzzle. But when he begins the task, he finds that not only are most of the pieces either damaged or missing, but that there is also a group of drunk and obnoxious Italian tourists in the vicinity who keep coming over and smashing up the little progress he has made for the sheer hell of it. What I'm saying here is the manager is actually doing a pretty good job, all things considered. 

Meanwhile on the opposition bench... We need to talk about Kevin. Firstly: Nugent, who was a loyal servant to Orient despite the fact he was demoted further and further down the hierarchy every time Sr Becchetti pulled the trigger on another manager, to the point where his final role profile at the club simply read "Hold a clipboard." Then of course there was also Kevin Dearden, who was a loyal servant to the club's restaurants and cafes. Given the current state of Orient, mind, I'm pretty sure where both of them would rather be sitting...

Leyton Orient 1 Swindon Town 2, 4/10/14

Darius Henderson

A game in which... Orient's aggression, desire and passion made them extremely dangerous. Unfortunately that aggression, desire and passion was concentrated entirely into a five-second melee in added time that saw Dean Cox shout at Nathan Byrne's knee and Darius Henderson juggernaut himself into an unfortunate Swindon player who is now presumably extracting himself from the back of the West Stand. 

Other than that the Os were insipid, error-strewn and lacking in ideas. If this is the new dawn then perhaps we should have all stayed in bed.

Jump off your seat moment... The moment Jay Simpson was released on goal by a wayward Swindon back pass only to be called offside in direct contradiction of the actual rules of the game of football. One can only imagine what would have happened if the striker had been able to continue his run. I'll go out on a limb and say that he would have scuffed a weak shot into the corner flag. That's what you get if you take a gap year from your career to go backpacking round Thailand. 

Give that man a medal... Poor old Dean Cox. God knows he gave it his all today but one man alone cannot win football matches. At the moment the midfielder must feel a bit like Keith Richards trying to jam with the Leyton 1st district cub scouts brass band and Rochelle from the Saturdays. 

Taxi for... Now, it's easy to knock Marvin Bartley, so that's exactly what I'm going to do. I really can't imagine what the question is if he is the answer, unless it's "What would happen if you asked a qualified window fitter with no previous experience of football to play in midfield for a League One club?" 

"Fuck the technical shit"... Presumably to put clear blue water between himself and his former boss, Kevin Nugent opted to tinker with his formation throughout the game, starting with a 4-2-3-1, moving back to 4-4-2, giving 7-2-3-4 a bash, reverting to a 8-0-0-7-1 then seeing how he fared with 0-1-9-8-2. None of this had any discernible effect so he instead resorted to trying to substitute Chris Dagnall 20 minutes after he'd already brought him off. 

Let's face it, Nuge – a decent and loyal guy – probably isn't the right person to sort this whole sorry mess out. When you have a mess of this size, you need someone with proper experience of waste management. Oh, hang on... 

Meanwhile on Twitter... Hats off to James Turley for producing this meme referencing the infamous moment last season when a Swindon pitch invader tried to attack Jamie Jones. Still, there was no such nonsense from Robins fans this time round. Instead they tried to set fire to the East Stand twice and then one have-a-go-hero tried to take on eight of the Metropolitan Police's finest. Top work lads! 

Leyton Orient 0 Crawley Town 1, 23/2/13

A game in which... Orient had the chance to put Wednesday's heartbreak behind them and come out all guns blazing. Instead they meekly took to the pitch waving white flags. Or maybe they were bedsheets, for this was a performance so soporific it could have been bottled up and sold as a miracle cure for insomnia.

Given that in the 13 remaining games the team will probably amass the four or five points that'll keep them in the division (best not bet your mortgage on it though) our season is effectively over in February. On the one hand it makes a refreshing change not to be fighting relegation. On the other, expect the next two months to feel like watching an ageing runner with a torn hamstring slowly and tortuously complete the last three miles of the London Marathon in just under seven hours.

Moment of magic... Moment of magic? Tricky one that. Imagine Paul Daniels turning up to a show without his wand, playing cards, white dove or Debbie McGee. Yes, Orient's performance was far from spellbinding, although Leon McSweeney did hoof one from 40 yards or so that only missed the goal by a few metres.

Moment of madness... Russell Slade's decision to bench Moses Odubajo, presumably for disobeying instructions on Wednesday by trying to dribble round people and create chances. Sure, the youngster's probably a bit knackered, but so is Kevin Dearden after walking from the dressing room to the dug out and you don't see him sitting on the bench all game. Oh, hang on...

Mathieu Baudry

Knight in shining armour... Yet again Mathieu Baudry put in a performance with all the class of a French aristocrat gliding majestically through an ambassador's ball as the wives of foreign dignitaries swoon at his feet. But let's instead hail the return of Leon McSweeney BA (Hons), whose earthier Irish qualities and lively running gave us a bit of impetus down the left today. The emphasis being on "a bit". 

Pantomime horse... A while ago I hailed the qualities of Lloyd James. Yeah, sorry about that. For though he is a tidy and sometimes effective player (and is tasked with a relatively unglamorous role), today he put in a shift that even Paul Terry might have been embarrassed about. Time for a spell on the bench? 

In the dug out... To be fair to our management team, there was a flurry of activity in the dug out during the match. Kevin Nugent was scribbling furiously on his notepad trying to work out if it would be cheaper for him, Russell and Kevin Dearden to share a villa in Marbella or an apartment in Corfu for their summer holiday. Slade was questioning physio Nick Dawes on the most reliable brand of diarrhoea tablets to take with them, while Dearden was mentally calculating how much it is physically possible to eat per day on an all-inclusive deal. 

View from the opposition... "Deserved victory," says Crawley fan Warren Lucy. "Always nerve-wracking when it's only 1-0 though. Should have killed Leyton Orient off. Poor atmosphere at Brisbane Road."

Meanwhile on Twitter... Tweet of the week has to go to Val Jacobs for summing up the plight of Os fans thus: "Supporting Orient is a long line of little disappointments with the odd massive disappointment here and there." Meanwhile, exciting news as Orient's number one celebrity fan and all round top fella Julian Lloyd Webber joins Twitter, tweeting football and cello-related banter from @JLloydWebber.  

Statto corner... Today David Mooney broke the Orient record for being caught offside, clocking up an impressive 427 offences. The previous record was held by Steve Watts in a 2001 game against Chesterfield, albeit due to the mitigating circumstances that he spent 38 minutes in the opposition penalty area trying to figure out how to re-tie his shoelaces. 

Charlton Athletic 3 Leyton Orient 1, 3/4/11

A game in which… Orient were sunk by Jamie Jones who, by throwing the ball directly to Bradley Wright-Phillips, committed such a howler that no one would have blinked an eye had he spent the rest of the game on all fours barking at the moon. It was, perhaps, the final coup de grace of Orient’s tactic of playing out from the back - a strategy so easily countered by anyone with two brain cells that even Robbie Savage could figure it out if he asked the entire cast of The Only Way Is Essex to help him.

But let’s not dwell on all that, for Jones is the best goalkeeper Orient have had for years and the short passing game is what’s got the team to the dizzy heights of eighth in the division. Moreover, the first half of this game saw the Os put in a near-faultless performance. The play-offs are probably beyond the team now, granted, but let’s continue to bask in the warm glow of a great season.

Moment to savour… A first-half move that was so sumptuous you could have served it up at a royal banquet. Starting down the left, taking in a cheeky little back heel before play switched to the right, it allowed Elliot Omozusi to fire in a cross that Scott McGleish put just over the crossbar.

Head in hands moment… The point at which Orient fans suddenly realised that Jimmy Smith’s headed goal had been disallowed. For what? Perhaps Smith’s socks weren’t regulation elasticity?

King for a day… Tom Carroll - sporting a freshly-shaved head after an outbreak of nits at his primary school - was immense in the first half, controlling the midfield like an 11-year-old Cesc Fabregas.

Boo boy… Sadly it can only be Jamie Jones. And not just for the scouser’s moment of madness that led to Charlton’s second goal either. In the first half he was repeatedly guilty of some unsubtle and pointless time wasting, while in the second he elected to try and dribble round half the opposition outside his own penalty area.

In the dug out… With an ill-fitting white T-shirt slung artlessly over his training top, Kevin Nugent was working the French exchange student look to dazzling effect. Slade, meanwhile, still appears reluctant to give Paul-Jose M’Poku any more than eight minutes to try and rescue a game.

What would Martin Ling have done? Reacted to Jamie Jones’s error by dropping him for the next game in favour of Glenn Morris. “This time I really think Cat can prove he deserves a place in the starting line up,” he’d say, before relegating the keeper back to the bench again two weeks later.

Play-offs? Although mathematically we’re still in with a good shout, current form tells us that even Carol Vordermann would have trouble making the sums add up.

The 10 reasons behind Orient's season to rememeber

Although the last couple of games have represented something of a setback, the fact that Orient are still in with a fighting chance of a play-off place going into April means this season has been the most successful since promotion in 2005/06. Here's why...

1. Physical presence
In football, size isn’t everything - otherwise Loick Pires would be playing for Barcelona. However, when 4ft 2in midfielder Dean Cox scored against Orient with a header - yes, a header - when playing for Brighton in 2007 it became clear that after a decade or so of fielding teams that could be out-muscled by the under-11s from the local comprehensive, it was probably time to add a bit of height and weight to the side. This season, then, we’ve got the likes of Chorley, Revell, Spring and Tehoue to compensate for Orient’s traditionally miniscule offering.

2. Tactical flexibility
Martin Ling, to be fair, had a couple of different formations up his sleeve. One was 4-4-2 with Sean Thornton played out of position, the other was 4-4-2 with Sean Thornton on the bench. Russell Slade, however, has switched from 4-4-2 to 5-4-1 to a midfield diamond as situations dictated, even mid-game. Losing to Droylsden in the FA Cup and down to 10 men, he threw caution to the wind and started the second half with three strikers - and then look what happened.


Paul Terry

3. A goal-scoring midfield
Orient has a proud recent history of non-scoring midfielders: Andy Harris, Billy Beall, David Hunt, Scott Canham… Paul Terry, meanwhile, had more chance of scoring at Faces Nightclub, Gants Hill, than he did of netting a goal - and with a face like that, that’s really saying something. This season, though, Cox, Smith, Dawson and Spring already have 22 between them, with many more likely to follow.

4. Loanees
The ability to play the loan market is a key requirement of lower league managers, and by and large Orient have been pretty hopeless at it. Bringing in Sam Parkin in 2008, for example, was like going to Sainsburys to buy a sirloin steak but coming back with a bag of mouldy Brussels sprouts. This season the loanees - in particular M’Poku, Whing, Kane and Carroll - have played a key part in the success of the side.

5. A bench
Part of Martin Ling must have died inside every time he turned round to his bench to see who he could bring on to change things, only to be faced with Derek Duncan, Loick Pires or Donny Barnard grinning at him inanely. It was worse for Geraint Williams - he only had James Scowcroft. These days, with the option of cameos from Tehoue, M’Poku, Kane and Chambers, we’ve never had it so good. Ryan Jarvis is on the bench too, mind, but someone needs to hand out the water bottles.

6. The goalkeeper
When it comes to the men between the sticks, Orient’s heritage is about as distinguished as Kerry Katona at a royal wedding. Historically it’s been a problem position - until this season, that is, when the young Jamie Jones has been a marvel on the goal line. We’ll struggle to hold on to him for too much longer, so enjoy it while it lasts.

7. A meritocracy
In previous regimes, some favoured players - let’s call them Adam Chambers, for the sake of argument - commanded a starting place in the side whether unfit, injured, out of form or missing a limb. As good a player as Chambers is, Slade’s decision to give an extended run to Jimmy Smith has paid dividends, and the manager's meritocratic approach to team selection as a whole has ensure that it’s always the 11 players in form taking to the pitch every week.

8. Tiny Cox
While it’s perhaps unfair to single out one player in a season of great team performances, an exception has to be made for the man who is indistinguishable from his own Subbuteo replica. With eight goals and 20 assists so far, Cox is the player Shane Tudor would like to have been, with a talent that JJ Melligan could only dream about in wild fantasies, probably also featuring unicorns and free Irish whiskey.

9. The big striker
Martin Ling used to spend most of the closed season threatening to bring in a ‘big striker’ while surreptitiously making bids for Julian Joachim, Luke Rogers and Verne Troyer. Russell Slade, meanwhile, brought in Alex Revell with the minimum of fuss, and the former Southend man’s presence - not to mention his goal scoring - has been vital to the team this season.

10. Kevin Nugent
While Russell Slade gets all the plaudits and his own South Stand chant, let’s not forget the contribution of Kevin Nugent. Not many other coaches in football could so artfully stand on the touchline with a hangdog expression for 70 minutes before spurring into action to inform the substitutes who they should be marking at corners. Kev is Orient through and through - apart from his many years at Plymouth, Bristol City, Cardiff and Swansea - and long may he continue. 

This feature originally appeared in the Leyton Orientear

Leyton Orient 4 Bristol Rovers 1, 12/2/11

A game in which... Orient continued a run that is now so impressive, it could probably beat Paula Radcliffe in a race - and without the need to take a piss halfway through either. Let's not worry that Bristol Rovers had the better of the second half, for Orient did what good teams are supposed to do: they absorbed the pressure and hit back. It really has been some time since the Os have played with such confidence and, unusually, we are actually winning games by more than a single-goal margin. (Note: even in the promotion season of 2005/06 this only happened on six occasions.)

Moment to savour... Russell Slade was obviously so confident of victory towards the end of the game that he generously gave a run out to the winner of the half-time schoolboys' penalty competition, 11-year-old Tom Carroll. I'm not saying that the Spurs loanee looks young, but when he gets home his mum's going to be furious that he's got mud all over his new red shorts.

Head in hands moment... When Jamie Jones went down with what initially looked like a serious injury. Even the most ill-informed of TV pundits - let's say Robbie Savage, for example - could work out that Orient's goalkeeper is going to be pretty busy against Arsenal next Sunday, so we need our number one between the sticks.

King for a day... It's easy to mock Jimmy Smith. I know, I've been doing it all season. But I have to concede that the ex-Chelsea man has got better and better to the point that he's now become a critical part of the Orient team. Today he put in another energetic and effective shift and nodded the Os 1-0 up with well-directed glancing header. Albeit only after seconds after he'd managed to skew a much easier chance straight back to the corner flag.

Boo boy... Absolutely no one, though the Revmeister did manage to defy all known physical laws of the universe in the build-up to the fourth goal by missing an open net from approximately six millimetres out. Thankfully Harry Kane spared his blushes by putting the ball away for him.

In the dug out... Orient, according to assistant boss Kevin Nugent, "hate getting beaten". Which is surely something of a minimum requirement for professional footballers? But then again he and boss Russell Slade are clearly doing something right - and can claim credit for sending on double-goalscorer Harry Kane at just the right moment.

What would Martin Ling have done? Used the post-match press conference to talk about the battle for places in the starting eleven for the forthcoming FA Cup tie against Arsenal. "At this point every position is up for grabs," he'd state, before going on to send out a team containing Brian Saah, Loick Pires and Derek Duncan.

Play-offs? Five points off the play-offs with a game in hand. Can Orient make it? Well, stranger things have happened in the world. (Well, only one stranger thing to be fair, and that was Gazza turning up to offer renegade nut job Raoul Moat a fishing rod and some chicken.) Still, Orient are in formidable form and the only way is up. Or down, I suppose.