Independent Leyton Orient Forum

It should be pointed out we lost 35+ National League goals, not the same thing.

Let us not have O's tinted specs here, the midfield at the time for the last time we were in League 2 is better.

An example, if you could choose the next midfielder to sign, would you prefer one that has played the last four years in League Two and well regarded by his team, or one that has played two years in the National League? Obviously everyone would prefer the first. If I say that is Sammy Moore 2015 vs Craig Clay 2019 then people want to change their minds.

What I could say is that with Josh Wright, we know fairly well what we are getting. The other three midfielders for differing reasons, they are slight unknown quantities. That wasn't so much the case last time we were in the League.

At the moment I think our squad is weaker than last season .I have concerns about our strike force . With Harrold and Alabi as our 3rd and 4th choice strikers we could be in real trouble if Wilkinson and Angol both get injured at the same time . Alabi was considered not good enough for Tranmere in the National League , then not good enough for us under JE . How he's now suddenly good enough for League Two beats me . Also, i'm also still not happy with our central midfield . We still need that Vincelot type midfielder to play along side either Clay or Wright . Another concern is after two nasty injuries how well will Dayton recover . The jury is still out on that one . In short ,I still feel we need another three more players . A new striker , winger and most importantly of all , another central midfielder .

Will be utterly depressing to not have any options to swap things up or rest our strikers this year, again. There’s almost no way both stay injury or ban free for the season.

Apple Wumble wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:02 pm Will be utterly depressing to not have any options to swap things up or rest our strikers this year, again. There’s almost no way both stay injury or ban free for the season.

Bonne managed to do it

He did. Luckily otherwise we’d probably still be non league.

Don’t think it’s happened before in recent memory though.

There's always the option of not starting or staying with 2 up front at times. It's not as if Koroma was an out and out front man, he played deeper and wider at times.

Wilkinson and Angol look to be more then a decent pairing if they gel. We won't be bringing in another striker that would start in front of either of them, anyone coming in would be likely to have the same number of negatives you could assign to Harrold, Sotirou or Alabi.

I always think that when people say we need a ball winner, have they not seen Craig Clay play?

Talking about wingers is not so important whem we won't be playing with them.

It's absolute nonsense that our cm options are worse than last season.

Red_Army wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:15 pm I always think that when people say we need a ball winner, have they not seen Craig Clay play?

Talking about wingers is not so important whem we won't be playing with them.

It's absolute nonsense that our cm options are worse than last season.

Clay is one man, we nearly fell apart last season when he picked up inevitable injuries and really was just the sheer will of McAnuff, along with JE's tactical nous that saw us through.

Huge ask for Jobi to do that again, especially given we don't have any other cover for the left side given that Brophy never really seems to deliver as a starter and is much more effective running at tired defenders as a sub.

We're running very thin in some key areas. League 2 sides will punish us for that if we pick up a few injuries where many tinpot NL sides didn't have the ability.

Lucky7 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:04 pm

Apple Wumble wrote: ↑Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:02 pm Will be utterly depressing to not have any options to swap things up or rest our strikers this year, again. There’s almost no way both stay injury or ban free for the season.

Bonne managed to do it

He did. For 2 seasons. A bloody remarkable achievement, especially given the amount of running he did and the battering he took.

Still would have been nice to have an option so he could have had a break when he was understandably jaded in the middle of last season.