Martin Ling is untouchable

[eagwgw]

He seemed quite tense and a bit abrupt at times, would be hard to see Travis acting in such a way.... ultimately the club will pay for this f*** up, not the owners (losses are financed by loans).

I can empathise in a way, he will not be feeling good about it. As he points out he is hugely experienced in football.... nobody else on the board is. His words would carry quite a lot of strength with the board, and we've been made to look stupid... a manager sticking around for 29 days because of falling outs is something you'd associate with the previous circus regime.

Fletcher I'm sure would still be around if he had his own backroom - sure players might not have liked it but we would have gotten in some free transfers immediately to replace them and more players and loans in January. Inclusive of making loans into permanent like Coulson/Brophy, Edinburgh got lots of backing (N'Gala, Adams, Reynolds, Holman, Mavila, Ling, Ekpiteta all signed as well in January).

I wonder if the cosy feeling extends to Travis as well. Ling is obviously a Leyton Orient legend. If Ling left, he would still have to be replaced with someone impartial to be the owners eyes and ears, and the relationship may not be as good with someone else.

[Long slender neck]

He’s not untouchable. But he’d really have to foul up before T & T got rid of him. But IMO he’ll never recommend a person as manager/head coach who he saw as knowing more than he did and therefore a possible threat to him. That’s one reason they’ll not offer the job to Russell

Appointing JE blows a large hole in your theory.

[Thor]

But he has been good for the club.

Good player
Good manager
Good dof

[PoundhillO]

He’s not untouchable. But he’d really have to foul up before T & T got rid of him. But IMO he’ll never recommend a person as manager/head coach who he saw as knowing more than he did and therefore a possible threat to him. That’s one reason they’ll not offer the job to Russell

Appointing JE blows a large hole in your theory.

That’s a 33.3 % success rate, not that impressive!

[Long slender neck]

Totally irrelevant to the point I'm making, well done.

[PoundhillO]

Totally irrelevant to the point I'm making, well done.

He made one excellent signing in JE and two absolute stinkers ,says it all.I woudnt want someone having any input on who to sign with a record like that !

[Long slender neck]

And again. Gonna go for the hattrick?

[PoundhillO]

And again. Gonna go for the hattrick?

Clearly if he is allowed to f*ckup again, Ling will be the one achieving an unacceptable hat trick.

[Chief crazy horse]

He’s not untouchable. But he’d really have to foul up before T & T got rid of him. But IMO he’ll never recommend a person as manager/head coach who he saw as knowing more than he did and therefore a possible threat to him. That’s one reason they’ll not offer the job to Russell

After yesterday’s Q&A what’s your opinion now? I’m not so sure he came across well, that he handled the questions well and was very defensive. Which was in contrast to Nigel who was being open, honest and engaging. Having worked for American companies I’m not so sure they would have been impressed with the public face of the football side.

I don't think Ling ever comes across well at interview.

[Disoriented]

And again. Gonna go for the hattrick?

Clearly if he is allowed to f*ckup again, Ling will be the one achieving an unacceptable hat trick.

Staggering that his incompetence continues to perpetuate itself.

Time for T & T to look closer to home and stop pinning all the blame for this fiasco all on Fletcher.

He is a convenient fall guy, especially with these leaks from the club about his ‘list’.

[Real Al]

Why is everyone perpetuating the myth that Ling chose the Head Coach? It was the board.

Sure, he put CF on the shortlist, but it's normal for a shortlist to have one or two candidates who are a little bit left-field

[eagwgw]

TBH I would have expected the board to be swayed by his input. Although rightly they will take collective responsibility.

The interview must have been made up of questions to assess his character but also technical football related questions to judge to see if we had what he wanted, not sure how anyone else on the board would properly process those answers and lean towards Ling for his judgement.

I do think that whilst Ling did not solely choose Fletcher, he did have the power to eliminate a manager from contention. Derek Adams failed because of a reference.... seems odd considering his track record with Plymouth was exactly what we needed and he took over and had to rebuild them, and clearly it could not be so bad as he passed this check at another club.

Get the impression the board might not be questioning enough whether elements of the culture may not actually be the right thing. I did read in the past that the club put up a photo of Justin in the dressing room at away games, nice sentiment but I think unhelpful for any new man.

Fletch is done now, the post mortem shows that 'the process' was seriously defective in some way, ultimately Ling is responsible for that.

[redintheface]

All good points above. In the longer term it will be interesting to see how Derek Adams fares at Morecambe - a club in a far less promising position than the O’s. It won’t exactly enhance our fans view of the “process” and “ culture” in place at Brisbane Road if Adams manages to start pulling them up League Two - bad references or not!

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

Why is everyone perpetuating the myth that Ling chose the Head Coach? It was the board.

Sure, he put CF on the shortlist, but it's normal for a shortlist to have one or two candidates who are a little bit left-field

I’m sure someone who studies the unofficial podcasts in detail can confirm but didn’t ling host initial chats with half a dozen of the 40 candidates, got that down to 4 for interview stage with him and porter of which 2 dropped out, and of the 2 interviewed Fletcher was recommend3d to T&T who had a phone call with him?

[Thor]

Why is everyone perpetuating the myth that Ling chose the Head Coach? It was the board.

Sure, he put CF on the shortlist, but it's normal for a shortlist to have one or two candidates who are a little bit left-field

His option will carry heavy weighting during the final stage as his recommendation would be listened to by people who don’t necessarily have the football experience and will rely to a certain degree to the expert they have appointed to run the football side of the club.

I have read on here so not sure how true it was, but everything he said in the interview stages got ripped up once he walked through the door. No one can account for that happening.

Still it’s done and dusted and we move onwards.

[Thor]

Why is everyone perpetuating the myth that Ling chose the Head Coach? It was the board.

Sure, he put CF on the shortlist, but it's normal for a shortlist to have one or two candidates who are a little bit left-field

I’m sure someone who studies the unofficial podcasts in detail can confirm but didn’t ling host initial chats with half a dozen of the 40 candidates, got that down to 4 for interview stage with him and porter of which 2 dropped out, and of the 2 interviewed Fletcher was recommend3d to T&T who had a phone call with him?

Correct that is what was said.

[slacker]

Decent summary of our Club’s issues in The Times yesterday.

Tl:dr? Fletcher was probably a bad fit for Orient, but is the situation too cosy for the players & coaches?

THE JOURNEYMAN | GREGOR ROBERTSON
november 18 2019, 12:01am, the times
As Carl Fletcher found out, culture clash will make or break new Leyton Orient manager
gregor robertson



When Carl Fletcher was sacked by Leyton Orient on Thursday he took his place in an undignified list of English football’s shortest managerial tenures. There have been a handful of shorter reigns over the years — Leroy Rosenior’s ten-minute spell at Torquay United in 2007 is likely to take some beating — but Fletcher’s dismissal after only six games in 29 days was pretty hard to fathom.

For Orient supporters, though, it would be fair to say that no love has been lost. A 4-0 thrashing away to Plymouth Argyle in October was a chastening start for Fletcher, 39, especially on the back of a 4-0 win away to Grimsby Town in the interim manager Ross Embleton’s final game in the dugout. A 1-0 defeat away to lowly Morecambe felt like the nadir before last weekend’s 2-1 home defeat by eighth-tier Maldon & Tiptree in the FA Cup first round.

Even in Sky Bet League Two optics are vital and Fletcher’s post-match interviews were deemed uninspiring and littered with platitudes. Players and staff failed to connect with the former West Ham United, Crystal Palace and Wales midfielder. Sometimes, explained a repentant Martin Ling, the director of football, the “fit doesn’t feel quite right”.

However hard it is to justify sacking a manager after less than a month, Orient, given all they have been through, are in a unique situation. In June, a month after leading Orient to promotion from the Vanarama National League, Justin Edinburgh, the manager, had a cardiac arrest and died at the age of 49.

When Fletcher joined from Bournemouth, where he had been an academy coach and loans manager, he recognised that the wound was raw. His first act was to call Edinburgh’s wife, Kerri. “That was a classy thing to do,” Nigel Travis, the chairman, said.


There was a determination not to affect the “culture” at Brisbane Road. Fletcher’s backroom staff consisted of Embleton, Edinburgh’s former assistant; Danny Webb, a former Orient manager; and Jobi McAnuff, a player-coach tipped as a manager of the future.

He was an outsider among a band of brothers. “It was a culture shock and he may not have had the personal skills — which we didn’t assess — to deal with that,” Travis, 69, said. “You have to reach out, you have to integrate, you have to talk to people. This is a very difficult place to manage. Because they’re a group who’ve gone through . . . you can’t go through anything worse.”


Since Travis and Kent Teague, the Texan businessman and principal investor, bought the club in 2017 there have been very few missteps. Their engagement with the community is in stark contrast to their predecessor Francesco Beelzebub, the erratic Italian waste-management magnate who bought the club in 2014. With debts of more than £5.5 million, and a winding-up petition, buckets rattled at Brisbane Road as Orient lost their Football League status for the first time in 112 years.

Edinburgh’s appointment two years ago was the catalyst for the renaissance but Ling, a former manager of the club, told his wife he had made a mistake only ten days after appointing Fletcher. The decision to extend the contracts of much of the title-winning squad looks misguided. The failure to replace Josh Koroma and Macauley Bonne, who were sold after scoring 34 of Orient’s 73 league goals last season, continues to be felt.

Fletcher had highlighted players that he wanted to move on in January, many of whom were among 18 players contracted for next season — a huge number for a League Two club. Ling and Travis disagreed with Fletcher’s assessment, believing Orient’s squad have a chance of gatecrashing the play-offs. A degree of loyalty and a desire for continuity should be lauded, but the fear is that Orient’s vision has become clouded by sentimentality.

Did Fletcher stand a chance? “The toughest thing was for [Fletcher] to come in and try to embrace that culture,” Embleton, 38, said. “He had intentions and a direction about how he wanted to work and it was almost like he wanted to get to that before embracing the culture. Sometimes those relationships with the players and the staff might need to be built first, and then you can drip feed your football [ideas] in from there.”

Embleton, the interim manager, turned the job down last month. The club would like him to reconsider. The alternative is an experienced manager with broad shoulders, or an acceptance, despite it all, that nothing lasts for ever.

[Chief crazy horse]

He’s not untouchable. But he’d really have to foul up before T & T got rid of him. But IMO he’ll never recommend a person as manager/head coach who he saw as knowing more than he did and therefore a possible threat to him. That’s one reason they’ll not offer the job to Russell

Appointing JE blows a large hole in your theory.

No it doesn't. Not at all. Like i've said before positive 'things' can happen at football clubs rather than it being due to any particular skill. How many managers, for example, have come to the fore with a run of good results and then disappeared from the scene almost without trace ? How i see it at the moment is because of our set up, the board are hoping Ross will turn things around and then change his mind about the managers job. All nicely wrapped up and all that.. Other than that they will be hoping to hit on another JE. All to keep the clubs present structure in place. We need a fresh approach. An experienced manager and maybe his number two along side him. I reckon Mr Travis needs to rethink his strategy as to what path we're going down. Should we pull off a shock win on Saturday, everything and everyone will be in a better frame of mind, but it will only be papering over the many cracks at this club.

[Long slender neck]

I dont know what you're going on about, EliotNes said they wont go for experience because its a possible threat to Ling, yet Ling has appointed two experienced coaches in Davis and Edinburgh.

[BiggsyMalone]

So, according to Ross. His biggest mistake was, he came to the club and didn’t know anyone but was expected to be mates with everyone straight away and not implement anything that went against what they were already doing.

I tell you what. Due to the coaching set up’s poor start to the season, refusal to change a system that was so ineffective, piss poor performances - whilst rewarding those with increased playing time and terrible defending (to name a few things), was the reason he came in and needed to change things and highlight who wasn’t good enough.

I hope the owners are taking these quotes from Ross and Ling onboard because they’re not good for the long term of this club.

[DuvB]

Given where we were when T&T bought the club, Ling did a brilliant job in getting a squad together and a manager in, in super quick time. For that he deserves the utmost credit. Yes, not every player was great and the first manager didn't work out but what happened thereafter was PROMOTION.

I for one, am grateful to the guy.

[BiggsyMalone]

Given where we were when T&T bought the club, Ling did a brilliant job in getting a squad together and a manager in, in super quick time. For that he deserves the utmost credit. Yes, not every player was great and the first manager didn't work out but what happened thereafter was PROMOTION.

I for one, am grateful to the guy.

Deserves credit? It was his job. If anything, it was easier for him. He had a clean slate to work from pretty much and didn’t have to sell to buy.

[DuvB]

Given where we were when T&T bought the club, Ling did a brilliant job in getting a squad together and a manager in, in super quick time. For that he deserves the utmost credit. Yes, not every player was great and the first manager didn't work out but what happened thereafter was PROMOTION.

I for one, am grateful to the guy.

Deserves credit? It was his job. If anything, it was easier for him. He had a clean slate to work from pretty much and didn’t have to sell to buy.

Ridiculous comment. Not worthy of any reply really.

[Chief crazy horse]

I dont know what you're going on about, EliotNes said they wont go for experience because its a possible threat to Ling, yet Ling has appointed two experienced coaches in Davis and Edinburgh.

What I'm 'going on about' is, because Ling appointed JE it doesn't "blow a hole in any other theory" contrary to your own on the manager topic.

[Long slender neck]

Yes it does, its quite simple. Can you not see the problem with saying "Ling wont appoint experienced coaches", when 2 out of 3 coaches he has appointed were experienced?