Would we be better off without Martin Ling?

[Yanzi Gravy]

What a disrespectful question and thread
2 champions as DOF
One promotion as manager.
ML is a true Leyton Orient legend.

So job for life then?

[PoundhillO]

Those were won by the talented managers who came in and turned an ailing club around. The credit for those goes to JE and RW.

The DoF presided over some appalling managerial choices in between, which seem to get brushed away (Fletcher or Embleton "the best manager the club can get") as well as the McMahon "set piece coach" nonsense last season that was destabilising the team.

On the recruitment side also add Embleton and Jackett's January transfer window shambles, plus the one this year that derailed Richie's playoff push. This summer appears to be another one with the goalkeeping debacle so hardly a glowing report card once you take that all into account.

Then you've got the academy that has a large roll call of staff but minimal output, seems to be a black hole money keeps going into.

Did Ling do a good job getting the club back on its feet... absolutely, much credit for that.

Does that mean his performance going forward can't be questioned at this level... absolutely not. Contrast to, say Peterborough who make good money from their recruitment and there's a lot of room for improvement.

What are Peterbrough ding different that we need to learn from? Where does their money go? As far as I can see they are a yo yo club.

Some of this might be nice though https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/pete ... ry-2332961

That’s the difference between club with an excellent DOF and our club , we will never be able to match them with Ling as DOF.

[essexfootball]

The club needs to start paying and picking up young players from League Two, Non-League and abroad for reasonable fees who can grow with the club and be sold at a big profit

[oriboy]

Ling was finished for me when a fan at a "meet the chairman" meeting asked Ling if we offered Derek Adams the job as our manager (think this was before Embleton was appointed) and Ling quite patronisingly talked down to the fan with a comment something like "people need to remember this is Leyton Orient, we can't afford people like Adams, we haven't got an endless budget".
Travis sitting along side Ling looked extremely uncomfortable with the retort and the way Ling spoke to the fan was nothing short of extremely rude.
I took a distinct dislike to Ling from that day and I find his style arrogant and often rude.

[North Stand Dave]

Pointless & disrespectful opening post by someone who is new to this board as someone else pointed out a youngster.
Some brilliant and true responses to the opening post so well done everyone.
Notice the opening poster hasn't come back with anything in reply.
Probably doing his homework now.

[Qin]

It isn't a disrespectful question, because all questions are important. A society that doesn't allow questions is not one I want to live in.
If you do, try North Korea, they don't allow any questions, so you'll be happy there.


One day ML will resign it retire ( he'll never get sacked), & when he's no longer doing what he does, someone else will do the job, and they may do it better.

Why do you need to be disrespectful to me? That jibe about doing my homework...... I'm probably much older than you.
Who do you think you are .... I'll tell you.....a F****** moron. To think this club has fools like you as supporters makes me heave.
I hope your ' observance' about me (which are totally wrong), make you feel embarrassed.
Now go forth and multiply

[gshaw]

Ling was finished for me when a fan at a "meet the chairman" meeting asked Ling if we offered Derek Adams the job as our manager (think this was before Embleton was appointed) and Ling quite patronisingly talked down to the fan with a comment something like "people need to remember this is Leyton Orient, we can't afford people like Adams, we haven't got an endless budget".
Travis sitting along side Ling looked extremely uncomfortable with the retort and the way Ling spoke to the fan was nothing short of extremely rude.
I took a distinct dislike to Ling from that day and I find his style arrogant and often rude.

Yup, same for me too. Considering how wrong he got the Fletcher appointment the arrogance was something else. Quite ironic a "big name" manager who gave Embleton a lesson in football ended up being the guy to deliver success after Ling telling fans Orient couldn't have one of those.

[PoundhillO]

Ling was finished for me when a fan at a "meet the chairman" meeting asked Ling if we offered Derek Adams the job as our manager (think this was before Embleton was appointed) and Ling quite patronisingly talked down to the fan with a comment something like "people need to remember this is Leyton Orient, we can't afford people like Adams, we haven't got an endless budget".
Travis sitting along side Ling looked extremely uncomfortable with the retort and the way Ling spoke to the fan was nothing short of extremely rude.
I took a distinct dislike to Ling from that day and I find his style arrogant and often rude.

Yup, same for me too. Considering how wrong he got the Fletcher appointment the arrogance was something else. Quite ironic a "big name" manager who gave Embleton a lesson in football ended up being the guy to deliver success after Ling telling fans Orient couldn't have one of those.

Totally agree.

[Chief crazy horse]

It isn't a disrespectful question, because all questions are important. A society that doesn't allow questions is not one I want to live in.
If you do, try North Korea, they don't allow any questions, so you'll be happy there.


One day ML will resign it retire ( he'll never get sacked), & when he's no longer doing what he does, someone else will do the job, and they may do it better.

Why do you need to be disrespectful to me? That jibe about doing my homework...... I'm probably much older than you.
Who do you think you are .... I'll tell you.....a F****** moron. To think this club has fools like you as supporters makes me heave.
I hope your ' observance' about me (which are totally wrong), make you feel embarrassed.
Now go forth and multiply

Some telling things well pointed out.

[Mistadobalina]

He gets an enormous amount of praise from ex players and staff who've been here over the last 6 years. You could see that as being part of a 'comfy' set up, but I think he gets a lot of the off the pitch stuff right that we just don't see and has contributed towards what has been an undeniably very successful period for the club. The way Thompson, as an example, was complimentary about Ling specifically when he was dealing with mental and physical difficulties in that recent Ear interview really stuck out. It sounds like he's a genuinely very decent bloke who clearly loves the club, and is particularly concerned with issues like player welfare and mental health. The club having a good reputation on stuff like that is a low-key huge positive and makes a lot of the personal flack he gets feel a bit mucky.

That said, he's never been a particularly imaginative or consistent recruiter of high quality players. That's reflected in how little we make in transfer fees, which ultimately needs to become a part of our business model if we're going to become more financially sustainable. I think we've probably reached the limit to how far Ling can take us in that respect and it is a difficult question for the ownership on whether we want to aim higher in having our footballing side of things be more innovative so we can punch above our weight, instead of being about where we would expect to be given our resources.

[claptonCasual]

Ling was finished for me when a fan at a "meet the chairman" meeting asked Ling if we offered Derek Adams the job as our manager (think this was before Embleton was appointed) and Ling quite patronisingly talked down to the fan with a comment something like "people need to remember this is Leyton Orient, we can't afford people like Adams, we haven't got an endless budget".
Travis sitting along side Ling looked extremely uncomfortable with the retort and the way Ling spoke to the fan was nothing short of extremely rude.
I took a distinct dislike to Ling from that day and I find his style arrogant and often rude.

100%

[Scuba Diver]

Ling was finished for me when a fan at a "meet the chairman" meeting asked Ling if we offered Derek Adams the job as our manager (think this was before Embleton was appointed) and Ling quite patronisingly talked down to the fan with a comment something like "people need to remember this is Leyton Orient, we can't afford people like Adams, we haven't got an endless budget".
Travis sitting along side Ling looked extremely uncomfortable with the retort and the way Ling spoke to the fan was nothing short of extremely rude.
I took a distinct dislike to Ling from that day and I find his style arrogant and often rude.

Was this rude, or just direct? Perhaps he could have chosen his words a little better, but he's a DoF not a PR.

The upshot is no-one on this board really knows what goes on day to day. My guess is that Ling is (likey) on a 6 figure salary- -
Nigel is no fool and would not be paying him that out of sheer sentiment. He must feel Ling offers value for that salary. That has to be taken into account.

[Lifelongfan]

What are Peterbrough ding different that we need to learn from? Where does their money go? As far as I can see they are a yo yo club.

Some of this might be nice though https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/pete ... ry-2332961

That’s the difference between club with an excellent DOF and our club , we will never be able to match them with Ling as DOF.

They got it wrong with clark-harris though.

[Qin]

Ling was finished for me when a fan at a "meet the chairman" meeting asked Ling if we offered Derek Adams the job as our manager (think this was before Embleton was appointed) and Ling quite patronisingly talked down to the fan with a comment something like "people need to remember this is Leyton Orient, we can't afford people like Adams, we haven't got an endless budget".
Travis sitting along side Ling looked extremely uncomfortable with the retort and the way Ling spoke to the fan was nothing short of extremely rude.
I took a distinct dislike to Ling from that day and I find his style arrogant and often rude.

Was this rude, or just direct? Perhaps he could have chosen his words a little better, but he's a DoF not a PR.

The upshot is no-one on this board really knows what goes on day to day. My guess is that Ling is (likey) on a 6 figure salary- -
Nigel is no fool and would not be paying him that out of sheer sentiment. He must feel Ling offers value for that salary. That has to be taken into account.

Ling is Travis's lap dog. I heard 2 years ago, ling was on £120,000 pa. How true that is, god knows, I heard it that's all.
Ling has held this club back. After the initial rebuilding of the club, Ling has held us back. We have missed out on loads of good players, because they wanted a little more than Ling would offer. We lost Ebou Adams because of ling.
A different DOF is needed IMO

[PoundhillO]

Ling was finished for me when a fan at a "meet the chairman" meeting asked Ling if we offered Derek Adams the job as our manager (think this was before Embleton was appointed) and Ling quite patronisingly talked down to the fan with a comment something like "people need to remember this is Leyton Orient, we can't afford people like Adams, we haven't got an endless budget".
Travis sitting along side Ling looked extremely uncomfortable with the retort and the way Ling spoke to the fan was nothing short of extremely rude.
I took a distinct dislike to Ling from that day and I find his style arrogant and often rude.

Was this rude, or just direct? Perhaps he could have chosen his words a little better, but he's a DoF not a PR.

The upshot is no-one on this board really knows what goes on day to day. My guess is that Ling is (likey) on a 6 figure salary- -
Nigel is no fool and would not be paying him that out of sheer sentiment. He must feel Ling offers value for that salary. That has to be taken into account.

Ling is Travis's lap dog. I heard 2 years ago, ling was on £120,000 pa. How true that is, god knows, I heard it that's all.
Ling has held this club back. After the initial rebuilding of the club, Ling has held us back. We have missed out on loads of good players, because they wanted a little more than Ling would offer. We lost Ebou Adams because of ling.
A different DOF is needed IMO

Couldn’t agree more.

[PoundhillO]

Some of this might be nice though https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/pete ... ry-2332961

That’s the difference between club with an excellent DOF and our club , we will never be able to match them with Ling as DOF.

They got it wrong with clark-harris though.

One that didn’t work out if only Ling could boast the same, Peterborough regularly have great success in bringing players in and not only making a massive profit but their strikers score shed loads of goals.

[Long slender neck]

Ling was finished for me when a fan at a "meet the chairman" meeting asked Ling if we offered Derek Adams the job as our manager (think this was before Embleton was appointed) and Ling quite patronisingly talked down to the fan with a comment something like "people need to remember this is Leyton Orient, we can't afford people like Adams, we haven't got an endless budget".
Travis sitting along side Ling looked extremely uncomfortable with the retort and the way Ling spoke to the fan was nothing short of extremely rude.
I took a distinct dislike to Ling from that day and I find his style arrogant and often rude.

Was this rude, or just direct? Perhaps he could have chosen his words a little better, but he's a DoF not a PR.

The upshot is no-one on this board really knows what goes on day to day. My guess is that Ling is (likey) on a 6 figure salary- -
Nigel is no fool and would not be paying him that out of sheer sentiment. He must feel Ling offers value for that salary. That has to be taken into account.

Ling is Travis's lap dog. I heard 2 years ago, ling was on £120,000 pa. How true that is, god knows, I heard it that's all.
Ling has held this club back. After the initial rebuilding of the club, Ling has held us back. We have missed out on loads of good players, because they wanted a little more than Ling would offer. We lost Ebou Adams because of ling.
A different DOF is needed IMO

Just no way you can know this. You sound like Donald Trump.

[Bergen]

That’s the difference between club with an excellent DOF and our club , we will never be able to match them with Ling as DOF.

They got it wrong with clark-harris though.

One that didn’t work out if only Ling could boast the same, Peterborough regularly have great success in bringing players in and not only making a massive profit but their strikers score shed loads of goals.

Lets not forget that they are spending a lot of money on their scouting network.

https://www.theposh.com/club/club-infor ... lub-scouts

[o-no]

They got it wrong with clark-harris though.

One that didn’t work out if only Ling could boast the same, Peterborough regularly have great success in bringing players in and not only making a massive profit but their strikers score shed loads of goals.

Lets not forget that they are spending a lot of money on their scouting network.

https://www.theposh.com/club/club-infor ... lub-scouts

They do have a lot of scouts, but they're not paid a fortune it seems. You can apply to be one and make the princely sum of £15 a game.

[Orientnil]

Wouldn't we be better off without purposeless whinging?

[Proposition Joe]

Everyone bemoaning our DoF doing "due diligence" should just write more honestly and say "we want him to be more reckless with our limited budget and, if any of those signings don't come off, we'd blame him anyway despite doing what we wanted".

[CEB2ElectricBoogaloo]

I don’t follow the actual Orient behind the scenes stuff that closely, but am I right in thinking that Ling has overseen two promotions in the last five years?

[Scuba Diver]

Ling was finished for me when a fan at a "meet the chairman" meeting asked Ling if we offered Derek Adams the job as our manager (think this was before Embleton was appointed) and Ling quite patronisingly talked down to the fan with a comment something like "people need to remember this is Leyton Orient, we can't afford people like Adams, we haven't got an endless budget".
Travis sitting along side Ling looked extremely uncomfortable with the retort and the way Ling spoke to the fan was nothing short of extremely rude.
I took a distinct dislike to Ling from that day and I find his style arrogant and often rude.

Was this rude, or just direct? Perhaps he could have chosen his words a little better, but he's a DoF not a PR.

The upshot is no-one on this board really knows what goes on day to day. My guess is that Ling is (likey) on a 6 figure salary- -
Nigel is no fool and would not be paying him that out of sheer sentiment. He must feel Ling offers value for that salary. That has to be taken into account.

Ling is Travis's lap dog.

How many days/weeks have you spent shadowing both Ling and Travis in their respective roles in order to establish that Ling is indeed Travis' lapdog?

Thanks in advance for clarifying, based on your inside experience.

If you Can't confirm based on your experience working at the club, then to brand Ling a "lapdog" is just something that exists in your own mind.

[ContrifibulatoryFred]

We don’t need Martin Ling

[CEB2ElectricBoogaloo]

It seems like on here, for some the role of DoF is “punching bag when we’d ideally not turn on the manager”

The reality is that the whole point of a DoF is to take care of a longer term view, immune from direct responsibility for, say, a run of bad results.

In practice, when there’s a popular manager and new signings haven’t worked out or seem cheap, it seems like it’s just a quite lazy option to suddenly turn on the DoF after several years of growth and development.

It may well be that Ling does have a ceiling of what he can do, but the time to judge that should be after an extended period of the club seeming to lack direction or a vision. That doesn’t seem to be what’s happening at the moment
Right now, i would say that that doesn’t seem to