Leyton Orient 2 Yeovil Town 2, 21/4/12

A game in which... Orient did the footballing equivalent of spending 84 minutes tentatively and inexpertly building a makeshift sandcastle, only to see it kicked down by two mild-mannered eight-year-old girls. Or, to dispense with the metaphors and give a more technical appraisal of the game: Orient are shit.

For while, relatively speaking, the home side put in a reasonable performance in the first 45 minutes, one of Russell Slade's now legendary half-time team talks sent the Os back out on the pitch with all the fire in their bellies of someone who's just eaten a bowl of tofu-flavoured blancmange. Even then, Orient were just eight minutes from virtual League One safety, but given the confidence with which they're playing at the moment, the capitulation was all too predictable.

Moment of magic... Jamie Jones's athletic first-half save, pushing a rifling shot from Andy Williams against the bar. We can only dream what may have been had the Scouser been between the sticks all season. We might have only lost 4-0 to Brentford, for example.

Moment of madness... Yeovil's 92nd-minute equaliser, in which yet again Orient failed to defend a relatively innocuous set piece. I'm not saying the current team are bottlers, but there are 11 vacancies at the local Coca-Cola factory which they'd be well-qualified for.

Knight in shining armour... It says a lot about our season that one of our most valuable players has been a striker who's only scored 12 goals, but God knows we'd be down and out without Kevin Lisbie. Today the former Charlton man put in another battling, classy performance - and linked up well with Jamal Campbell-Ryce - but nonetheless he must feel at times like a lead singer who takes to the stage only to find his band has forgotten how to play all the songs. (Or never knew them in the first place.)

Pantomime horse... He's been out for six weeks and has actually been one of the better performers this season, but Leon McSweeney had a shocker - especially in the first half. Particularly bizarre was his decision to compensate for his woeful passing by electing to repeatedly shoot from 45 yards.

In the dug out... There's been much post-match talk about the wisdom of Russell substituting (injured) Adam Reed and Jamal Campbell-Ryce for Jimmy Smith and Calvin Andrew in the 90th minute, though to be honest wasting a bit of time to bring on an experienced midfielder and someone whose height might help in defending corners wasn't the most insane decision the manager's ever made. That was signing Andrew in the first place. More of an issue was the ongoing spectacle of just how negatively Slade presumably asked Orient to play in the second half.

A word on the opposition... Credit to the Yeovil fans for keeping up their bizarre pagan cowbell chant throughout the entirety of the first half - bombed out of their minds on cider, no doubt. And while their team can't be described as the classiest to play at Brisbane Road this season, they certainly aren't the worst. That honour goes to Orient.

Meanwhile on Twitter... An extraordinary spat between Dean Cox and ex-O Gabriel Zakuani, who tweeted "If Orient went down it would probably hurt me more than any player that's currently there." "No it wouldn't," Tiny fired back. "Disrespectful saying that... your spose to be an experienced pro, you should know better. You have been and gone your a Peterborough player concentrate on that." Go Coxy! If only we could translate all the energy the players put into tweeting how up for it they are into actual performances we might just scrape out of this mess.

Lesson for the day... Which this week comes from Russell Slade himself, who said post-match: "We're in a better position than what we were before today's game." Which is an interesting way of interpreting the fact that Chesterfield and Exeter both gained two points on us. Essentially, we're in deep trouble. Where the hell is Accrington Stanley anyway?

Where did it all go wrong for Orient?

About a year ago I wrote a blog looking at the 10 reasons behind Orient's incredible 2010/11 season. It would be an understatement of the highest magnitude - like suggesting Olly Murs is 'a bit shit' or Stacey Solomon 'somewhat irritating' - to say that things haven't gone quite so well this campaign. Here's some ideas as to why...

Inside Russell Slade's mind

1. The Barnsley offer
We don’t know what goes on inside Russell Slade’s mind (but I’m guessing something like ‘EUREKA! The missing piece to the jigsaw is… JAMIE SMITH! Now, let’s get this Ginsters pasty out the microwave and watch some serious Cash In The Attic’). And because we don’t know what’s going on in his mind we don’t know how much he was affected by Barry Hearn’s refusal to let him countenance an offer from Championship side Barnsley in the summer. But I would say this: at the start of the season Slade appeared to be a shadow of his former touchline self - quiet, subdued and giving the impression he’d rather be somewhere else. Either that or he was contemplating the full horror of his decision to sign Marc Laird.

David Mooney

2. Injuries, wantaways and prison spells
OK, I’M JOKING ABOUT MARC LAIRD! In fact I’d say Slade’s summer activity actually made a lot of sense. McGleish out, Cureton in was a good move on paper; Cuthbert and McSweeney could provide good competition for places in the starting XI; and even Laird and David Mooney should have been adequate cover – albeit only in the sense that you might keep a rusty old tricycle in your garage just in case your car breaks down. But since then Slade hasn’t exactly had the rub of the green. Injuries affect every club, but this season has been a particularly cruel one for Orient – with an added prison sentence for the first-choice right back thrown into the mix. On top of that there were two key players who clearly wanted to move on (Daniels and Dawson) and, given their contract situation, there wasn’t much we could do about it…

3. Inadequate replacements!
… So, yes, if we can hardly blame Slade for the departures of both our captain and left back; the criminal activities of Elliot Omozusi; and the unfortunate transmogrification of Jamie Cureton from human to donkey, it’s surely true that the manager has FAILED TO REPLACE ANY OF THEM. Was it right, for example, to go through most of the season without a recognised right back and a combination of loanee left backs? Would Jonathan Demme have baulked at the salary demands of Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster and instead shot Silence Of The Lambs with Ashton Kutcher and Reece Witherspoon? And as for the central midfield slot, Slade has gone about replacing Dawson with all the finesse of a recently-divorced 50-something scouring the internet for Russian and Thai brides.

Don't lend Russell one of these

4. Erratic approach to loan market
Paul-Jose M’Poku. Harry Kane. Andrew Whing. Tom Carroll. Yes, Slade played the loan market brilliantly last season, bringing in players to complement the team, add another dimension to the play, rest tired legs and provide competition for places. This season’s problem isn’t so much that the loanees/short-term signings aren’t any good – Calvin Andrew aside, obviously – but that Slade doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing with any of them. Why bring in recognised right back Syam Ben Youssef then not play him when there’s no other right back at the club? Solomon Taiwo – in the team, out the team, fuck it, let’s try Adam Reed instead. Jamie Smith? What the hell? The moral of which is: never lend Russell Slade a tenner, as he’ll likely return it to you as a combination of loose change, assorted buttons, hastily-scribbled IOUs, magic beans and broken promises.

5. Overly cautionary tactics
Now, contrary to the view of many fans (including myself), playing George Porter more wasn’t the answer to all of Orient’s problems. (Note how ineffective he was against Charlton and Huddersfield… And for a much more incisive analysis read this piece by my fellow blogger Bill Badger.) However, it is pretty soul-destroying for fans to see things such as:
a) Orient lining up 4-5-1 at home with just David Mooney up top
b) Orient refusing to leave even one player up the pitch when defending corners at Brisbane Road
c) Russell Slade, in post-match interviews, talking of how, at Brisbane Road, it was ‘important to stay in it’

What happened to the blustering, never-say-die attitude we saw in Slade’s second game at the club in 2010, when we took the game to promotion-hunting Norwich and beat them to help us stay in League One? We lined up 4-4-2 against Arsenal at the Emirates last season for christ’s sake! It’s felt lately like we’ve gone into games with all the attacking intent of a cowardly Spanish bull who knows it’s going to fall at the hands of a matador, but hopes at least to run him around arena a couple of times first before succumbing to the inevitable.

6. Did I say ‘tactics’?
Of course, suggesting that Slade’s tactics were ‘overly cautionary’ presupposes that tactics existed in the first place. I’m being flippant:  there must be some sort of plan in the manager’s head before and during matches, but of late it’s been difficult to discern. A telling moment came in our recent game against Huddersfield when Kevin Lisbie came on for Marc Laird and two minutes later Matt Spring and Jimmy Smith were still asking Slade what formation they were supposed to be playing. Last season Dean Cox scored 12 goals and made a staggering 22 assists from left wing. This campaign he’s frequently been asked to play in an apparently free role in the middle of the pitch (usually mid-game) where he’s much less effective. Fair play to Slade, if things aren’t working he’s justified in trying to change things round, but this season you get the impression that if he were captain of a sinking ocean liner he’d be ordering the crew to repaint the fittings in the cabins, see if that helped.

7. Monkey tennis!
Slade’s approach to team selection in the latter half of the season has become reminiscent of that famous Alan Partridge scene in which the presenter suggests increasingly desperate and outlandish ideas for a TV show in the hope that one of them will stick (‘Youth hostelling with Chris Eubank?’ ‘Monkey tennis?’ etc). No right back? Try Terrell Forbes. Not working? Chuck him at left back then. Need a striker late in the game? Give defender Syam Ben Youssef a run out. Laird in, Laird out, you do the hokey-cokey and you turn around. That’s what it’s all about.

8. Those Churchillian team talks
As opposed to last season, Slade seems to have lost the ability to motivate the team – as the lack of second-half goals at Brisbane Road (four all season; none since 10 December) demonstrates. The way we’ve recently folded against the likes of Wycombe, Notts County and, today, Exeter hardly suggests the manager is sending out the team with fire in its belly. It’s as if he’s been building up the players’ confidence by sending them on a motivational course run by Tim Henman, Nick Clegg and the lion from the Wizard of Oz.

Still, there's always hope. Perhaps Wycombe won't pick up any more points and we'll stay up by default...

Leyton Orient 0 Notts County 3, 6/4/12

A game in which… Orient didn’t so much as shoot themselves in the foot, but blasted off their whole legs with a bazooka. Make no mistake, for the first 65 minutes this was a much improved performance in which the Os not only retained possession but also – unlike the games against Charlton and Huddersfield – created numerous chances. The fact that they couldn't convert any of them or avoid conceding three goals at the other end, however, means that we are utterly doomed.

Moment of magic… The sweeping counter-attack early in the second half that teed up Jimmy Smith on the edge of the area. That he put his shot wide demonstrated that there was more chance of Jonathan Tehoue ordering ‘Just the salad for me, thanks’ at the Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat buffet than Orient actually getting the ball in the back of the net.

Orient's defence

Moment of madness… That horrifying, heart-in-mouth moment when Jamie Jones collected a cross, only to collide with Terrell Forbes – presumably confused as to where he was supposed to be standing having played in 11 different positions over the last six games – and spill the ball. Don’t get me wrong, it was a joy to have Jones back – a typically athletic leap to deny Lee Hughes in the second half reminded us what a talent he is – but it’s a shame he’s playing behind a defence who are about to be served a lawsuit by the Swiss Cheese Marketing Board for blatant copyright infringement.

Knight in shining armour… Today’s man of the match was David Mooney. WARNING! WARNING! FATAL ERROR IN THE INTERNET. EVACUATE THE VICINITY IMMEDIATELY. No, seriously, the former pub team ringer, sorry, Colchester player, got involved, laid the ball off well and set up a number of chances, almost as if he was an actual footballer.

Pantomime horse… Fair play to Jimmy Smith, he never lacks in effort and actually did get himself involved a bit more than usual today. But in squandering so many gilt-edged chances, the shaven-haired lothario’s performance was the footballing equivalent of a night out at Loughton's Nubar in which numerous hot women offer him sexual favours, only to be disappointed when he accidentally throws up on each of them.

In the dug out… Today Russell reverted to the 4-4-2-ish sort of formation that worked so well last year and, were it not for the abysmal finishing, might have actually paid off. But the manager’s constant tinkering – today Dean Leacock had a crack at right back – and apparent inability to recognise what his best team is meant that once again the Os were ripped apart like a papier-mache clown thrown to the lions.

A word on the opposition… A pretty easy day out for the Notts County players. All they had to do was to sit back, watch Orient miss chance after chance and then wait until the home defence gave them the ball and said, ‘Hey, why don’t you score into this empty net?’ They’ll probably have easier victories, but only if they challenge a group of claustrophobics to a game of hide-and-seek.

Lesson for the day… If, as a fan, you want to continue to follow Orient’s push for League One survival, your money is probably better spent going to Wycombe games and heartily cheering on their opponents.

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.

Charlton Athletic 2 Leyton Orient 0, 31/3/12

A game in which... the Orient team had presumably forgotten to put their clocks forward the weekend before, since when Charlton kicked the game off at 3pm, the Os were still ambling round the pitch in a gentle warm-up. Russell Slade's team did finally wake up 15 minutes in and had a few sporadic spells of possession throughout the game, but possession doesn't win football matches, otherwise Barcelona would be the best team in the world. Oh, hang on...

Moment of magic... He leapt like a salmon, he was fearless in the face of danger... No, not a new comic book superhero who tries to save the world by fumbling round objects and tripping over his shoelaces, but loanee goalkeeper non-extraordinaire Paul Rachubka. The former Man Utd man (yes, you did read that correctly) pulled off a remarkable double save in the second half to keep the score at 1-0, before ruining all his good work by failing to come out to meet the cross that led to Charlton's winner.

Moment of madness... The moment when George Porter was caught napping as Charlton took the quick free kick that led to their first goal. No doubt it's tiring work driving round Essex wolf-whistling at girls all day, but the young winger really needs to pay more attention during matches.

Knight in shining armour... It was an afternoon of performances as flaccid as a Brisbane Road burger (where the imminent danger of gastroenteritis is much more threatening than the Os' attacks.) I suppose Matt Spring played ok though.

Pantomime horse... Ok, so Terrell Forbes isn't a natural left back, but that shouldn't really excuse another performance that wasn't so much a car crash, more a motorway pile-up.

In the dug out... Russell Slade's decision to go into the game with Terrell Forbes and David Mooney lined up on the left was like a gladiator going in to battle with one arm tied behind his back and a massive fluorescent arrow painted down one side of his body with the words 'STAB ME HERE' emblazoned on it. Worse still, once Syam Ben Youssef came on in place of the injured Scott Cuthbert, it turned out he was a perfectly adequate full back, begging the question as to why, in an injury crisis, he hadn't actually been on the pitch before.

A word on the opposition... Let's not forget Charlton are top of the league and, as opposed to our last meeting with them, actually had 11 players on the pitch for the majority of the game. That is, we were hardly going to win anyway. What is worrying is Orient's consistent inability to turn possession into any meaningful attacks.

Meanwhile on Twitter... This week key members of Orient's glorious promotion squad of 2005/06 such as, erm, Derek Duncan and Aiden Palmer have been talking up a John Mackie-organised reunion on 12 May. "John Mackie #ledge apart from that time he tried to fight efe! Lmao" tweeted Duncan. "hahah Mackie hated Efe with a passion!" replied Palmer. And while the thought of the uncompromising Mackie squaring up to Echanomi conjures up an image of an ageing hippopotamus trying to attack a whippet, I wish them all the best on their night out...

Lesson for the day... Despite the impressive win against Oldham, we're not out of the relegation mire just yet. And with Jordan Rhodes versus Paul Rachubka on Tuesday night - which may resemble using an anti-aircraft missile to wipe out a small, frightened gerbil - there's more trouble ahead...

Leyton Orient 0 Sheffield Wednesday 1, 24/3/12

A game in which... Orient put in an effort but - like a knight who can't really be bothered to climb a tower to rescue a damsel in distress but does at least have the decency to call the fire brigade - it was hardly a valiant one. Essentially, Sheffield Wednesday are a much, much better team than us and, despite the 1-0 scoreline, didn't really have to break a sweat to take the three points.

Moment of class... Leon McSweeney's perfectly executed penalty area tackle in the second half that surely prevented a goal. Mind you, though the Irishman has a degree from Loughborough University surely even he couldn't figure out why Slade asked he and Terrell Forbes to swap right and left back positions today.

Moment of madness... Slade's second-half decision to take off Adam Reed rather than Dean Leacock to make way for George Porter. A small section of the crowd (i.e. the Orient fans) let the manager know exactly what they thought of that, and Reed himself wasn't exactly shy in letting his feelings show. I'm not saying Slade has totally lost the plot, but he's certainly misplaced it somewhere around the stadium and is going to have trouble finding it again before Tuesday.

Knight in shining armour... Chorley had a reasonable game but once again Scott Cuthbert was the only player to really shine in an Os' shirt. God only knows we might have even keep a clean sheet once in a while had we occasionally fielded a recognised right and/or left back alongside our centre backs.

Pantomime horse... Fair play to Slade, he's finally realised Terrell Forbes isn't a right back. Bizarrely the manager elected to give former Yeovil man a run out at left back today instead, the footballing equivalent of figuring that someone who's just failed their First Aid Certificate might fare better if they were allowed to perform brain surgery.

In the dug out... "The important thing was to stay in it," said Slade after the game, telling you all you need to know about his ambitions for a home game in which three points were crucial. Enough said.

A word on the opposition... Sheffield Wednesday were well-organised, battling and have a fair bit of pace and flair. I would suggest they didn't need to get out of second gear to take the three points, but in truth they didn't even need bother starting the engine.

Meanwhile on Twitter... This week Orient's philosopher-in-residence Jimmy Smith has been trying to tackle the big existential questions of life, via the medium of Only Fools And Horses. He tweeted: "Trigger- iv had the same broom for 10 years, its had 17 new heads an 10 new handles. HaHaHaHa (How the F**K is it the same broom thn LOL)" Clearly this metaphysical conundrum was a bit much for Jimmy and shortly after the midfielder posted the rules you see pictured here, which should help him get through the week without overtaxing his brain.

Lesson for the day... The only time we look even vaguely like scoring was when George Porter came on. Many managers may interpret this as an indication that George Porter should perhaps be allowed more time on the pitch. Russell??

Leyton Orient 2 Brentford 0, 17/3/12

A game in which... Orient didn't so much as throw the monkey off their back, but flung it into a corner and beat the living daylights out of it. Yes, a home win - the first since New Year's Eve - and a victory by two clear goals, which according to the record books hasn't happened at Brisbane Road since nippy inside forward Frankie 'Sailor Boy' Oliver's goal sealed a victory over Glossop North End back in September 1907*.

Granted it wasn't the most fluid performance - and Brentford blew three big chances to score in the first half - but it was committed and effective and by the second half the victory was a relatively comfortable one. Rejoice!

Moment of magic... The first-half moment when Paul Rachubka confirmed that he wasn't taking part in a Channel 4 Faking It documentary by saving brilliantly from Leon Legge's point blank header and proving he was an actual goalkeeper. Admittedly the perennial loanee's first action of the game had been to let an innocuous ball spoon off his chest and into the path of Brentford's Saido Berehino, but after that he was flawless. As an added bonus, unlike the 78 keepers who've previously turned out for Orient this season, he managed to avoid getting crocked. (So expect him to suffer a bizarre finger injury later tonight while setting the dishwasher.)

Moment of madness... When Russell Slade made his usual 80th-minute substitution and brought on Jonathan Tehoue... only to remember he'd let the Frenchman go two weeks ago and had inadvertently allowed defender Syam Ben Youssef onto the pitch to lead the attack. Full credit to the Tunisian though - he looked more at home up there than David Mooney.

Knight in shining armour... It was a committed team performance today, though Ben Chorley, Adam Reed and Jamal Campbell-Ryce all had particularly good games. Man of the match, however, should go to Kevin Lisbie for a much-improved performance and the fact that - in a break from the time-honoured tradition of Orient strikers - he actually scored. More of that please.

Pantomime horse... No bad performances from any Orient players, so instead let's focus on officiously self-important referee Paul Tierney for trying to book Dean Cox for a wild tackle actually committed by Adam Reed. After Tiny had protested his innocence Tierney pointed the finger of accusation at various other Orient players while Reed skulked self-consciously into the background like a naughty schoolboy about to be disciplined for giving the French exchange kid a wedgie. Ultimately the referee simply gave up and waved play on. Where's David Elleray when you need him?

In the dug out... Today Russell Slade threw caution to the wind and played both Dean Cox and Jamal Campbell-Ryce, the first time he's trusted in that much flair since buying a pair of bell-bottomed jeans in 1972 after a Jefferson Airplane gig.

A word on the opposition... After the 5-0 drubbing Brentford dealt to Orient earlier in the season Bees fans must have come to Brisbane Road licking their lips with all the relish of Jermain Defoe at an X Factor past-winners party. Unfortunately for them their team have been about as bad on the road as Orient have at home so something had to give. Three big chances in the first half went begging and from there the home team were in control.

Meanwhile on Twitter... Jamie "Orient goalkeeper... for now" Jones showed his ongoing dedication to the team week this week when his partner posted a picture of their young son wearing a Spurs shirt. "No chance" the injured Scouser tweeted back before presumably swapping it for an Everton one.

Lesson for the day... It is not, after all, scientifically impossible for Orient to win at Brisbane Road. And if we can defy the laws of physics like this today, who knows what might happen on Tuesday. Calvin Andrew to score?

* Actual fact