Independent Leyton Orient Forum

That was my 1st visit to the O’s this season, and I caught some of the Q&A in the “fanzone” too before going upstairs for my pre-match grub.

I don’t think it’s right to suddenly revise opinions of Fletcher upwards: he clearly demonstrated poor comms skills and had a CV that makes it mind-bottling to understand how Ling & Co could have thought he was the right man for Head Coach in the first place. To sack him so quickly was the correct decision, and I appreciate the Board holding their hands up to a massive error.

But it’s clear the current set up is too cosy and needs a shake up if we want to aim higher. In the match we were toothless, the players ran out of steam far too quickly, and there’s a few 1st choices that are struggling at Div 4 level. I can’t see Embleton - who said the no1 job wasn’t for him just weeks ago - being the long term answer this time round either, although I reckon we’ll do enough to stumble through the rest of the season and avoid the 1 relegation spot, and then the Directors will have to bite the bullet and stir things up with both players, coaches & structure in the summer.

What happens if we don’t avoid the first relegation slot having tried to stumble through the season?

Andy Gilson wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 9:22 am Fletcher had the players running for hours on the Friday before the Carlisle match, quelle suprise they ran out of steam 2nd half. Fletcher I think had read that infamous parody 'How To Lose Friends & Alienate People'.
I think most of us know that unfortunately a few players are not making the required step up and will obviously not have their contracts renewed.
Everything is budgeted at the club, they won't be relegated, but any changes to staff will have to fall in with their budget and costings projections.
Us lot have to sit tight and mostly wait til June when many contracts will be up.

The trouble is some of those who aren't gonna be good enough have already had their contracts renewed! And the ones that haven't signed might be worth keeping.

Ekpiteta is perhaps the only one who should get one, he is worth a decent fee.

Gorman, Sargeant, Sotiriou might be worth it as cheap backup, also they have not had much chance.

McAnuff, Dayton, Harrold gone for sure. Alabi as well. But that was always going to be the case.

The problematic ones are those who might have no interest from League clubs, but are on League money and therefore quite difficult to shift even if transfer listed. We saw that with Alabi this season but we might have three or four of this type next year.

So Martin Ling and Nigel Travis think that we have a squad that is capable of pushing into the play offs. Carl Fletcher didn't. Interesting.

Andy Gilson wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 9:22 am Fletcher had the players running for hours on the Friday before the Carlisle match, quelle suprise they ran out of steam 2nd half. Fletcher I think had read that infamous parody 'How To Lose Friends & Alienate People'.
I think most of us know that unfortunately a few players are not making the required step up and will obviously not have their contracts renewed.
Everything is budgeted at the club, they won't be relegated, but any changes to staff will have to fall in with their budget and costings projections.
Us lot have to sit tight and mostly wait til June when many contracts will be up.

Basically you are saying that us paying fans have to write off a season and continually trudge to the ground knowing that poorly-recruited players and mis-managed managers produce dross week by week?

Time for someone to be held accountable for this mess.

Andy Gilson wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 9:22 am Everything is budgeted at the club, they won't be relegated

I know you're part of the club PR / propaganda machine that's been running at political levels the past few days but the complacency to state we won't be relegated is simply astounding.

That's the kind of attitude Ross and the players are displaying, thinking they can waltz through games without putting the effort in. If anyone comes in and tries to give them the requisite kick up the backside they close ranks as we've now learnt.

eagwgw wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 9:46 am

Andy Gilson wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 9:22 am Fletcher had the players running for hours on the Friday before the Carlisle match, quelle suprise they ran out of steam 2nd half. Fletcher I think had read that infamous parody 'How To Lose Friends & Alienate People'.
I think most of us know that unfortunately a few players are not making the required step up and will obviously not have their contracts renewed.
Everything is budgeted at the club, they won't be relegated, but any changes to staff will have to fall in with their budget and costings projections.
Us lot have to sit tight and mostly wait til June when many contracts will be up.

The trouble is some of those who aren't gonna be good enough have already had their contracts renewed! And the ones that haven't signed might be worth keeping.

Ekpiteta is perhaps the only one who should get one, he is worth a decent fee.

Gorman, Sargeant, Sotiriou might be worth it as cheap backup, also they have not had much chance.

McAnuff, Dayton, Harrold gone for sure. Alabi as well. But that was always going to be the case.

The problematic ones are those who might have no interest from League clubs, but are on League money and therefore quite difficult to shift even if transfer listed. We saw that with Alabi this season but we might have three or four of this type next year.

Ekpiteta will be gone on a free or a nominal fee in Jan if he doesn't sign a new contract.

Gorman I doubt is cheap, Sargeant not good enough, Sotiriou worth hanging onto if they give him a chance.

With Ross in charge I wouldn't be surprised if Alabi got a contract extension, that's how ridiculous it's got now.

Self-belief and character-building are needed. Urgently. Paging Mr Slade....

There are only 10 out of contract in June including 2 young professionals. Expect Marsh to go back to Spurs. Of course Ross needs a full compliment of players at his dispersal which won't happen. Cant see McAnuff playing again. My main concern is whether he has the authority or bottle to make radical team selections

POSHO wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 10:14 am There are only 10 out of contract in June including 2 young professionals. Expect Marsh to go back to Spurs. Of course Ross needs a full compliment of players at his dispersal which won't happen. Cant see McAnuff playing again. My main concern is whether he has the authority or bottle to make radical team selections

The other issue is two core areas that aren't performing are filled by senior players who had contract extensions (Coulson and Clay). Both are Ross favourites so with him in charge can't see that changing. In CM particularly that's a huge issue.

Andy Gilson wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 9:22 am Fletcher had the players running for hours on the Friday before the Carlisle match, quelle suprise they ran out of steam 2nd half. Fletcher I think had read that infamous parody 'How To Lose Friends & Alienate People'.
I think most of us know that unfortunately a few players are not making the required step up and will obviously not have their contracts renewed.
Everything is budgeted at the club, they won't be relegated, but any changes to staff will have to fall in with their budget and costings projections.
Us lot have to sit tight and mostly wait til June when many contracts will be up.

I think relegation is unlikely Andy but it is certainly not impossible. I’m probably like many Os fans and keep a keen eye on what’s happening downstairs. Hoping somebody is worse than us.

Player fitness, to me anyway, has been an issue from day 1. So if Fletcher recognised this quickly then he was right to deal with it, those his methods may have been wrong. Right idea, wrong implementation. And what the heck is our fitness coach doing?

I also believe our recruitment has been poor. I understand the desire to reward players who took us up, but not at the expense of risking that promotion. I just hope we survive this season, then move on next.

dOh Nut wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 10:36 am

Andy Gilson wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 9:22 am Fletcher had the players running for hours on the Friday before the Carlisle match, quelle suprise they ran out of steam 2nd half. Fletcher I think had read that infamous parody 'How To Lose Friends & Alienate People'.
I think most of us know that unfortunately a few players are not making the required step up and will obviously not have their contracts renewed.
Everything is budgeted at the club, they won't be relegated, but any changes to staff will have to fall in with their budget and costings projections.
Us lot have to sit tight and mostly wait til June when many contracts will be up.

I think relegation is unlikely Andy but it is certainly not impossible. I’m probably like many Os fans and keep a keen eye on what’s happening downstairs. Hoping somebody is worse than us.

Player fitness, to me anyway, has been an issue from day 1. So if Fletcher recognised this quickly then he was right to deal with it, those his methods may have been wrong. Right idea, wrong implementation. And what the heck is our fitness coach doing?

I also believe our recruitment has been poor. I understand the desire to reward players who took us up, but not at the expense of risking that promotion. I just hope we survive this season, then move on next.

You can’t risk promotion once it happened.

Stuff loyalty - more pragmatism is needed.

Just watch the crowds plummet after today’s performance, even the game for a fiver attendees will have felt robbed and extremely unlikely to return.

PoundhillO wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 10:41 am Just watch the crowds plummet after today’s performance, even the game for a fiver attendees will have felt robbed and extremely unlikely to return.

Do you mean the ‘sell out’ crowd we had yesterday?

The financials say that relegation would be a disaster.

At the last annual accounts (end 2018) the club owed c.£3m to Eagle (there is also equity of c.£2m for the owners). Eagle itself had c.£2m in cash, which I think covers the losses for last season and this season, although Bonne/Koroma sales would be significant.

We can use the word 'refinancing' but it may mean very little, pushing of debts from current to non-current for example on the same terms. I'd be delighted if some was written off, but I can't see why anyone would do that.

Relegation would decrease revenues sharply. Last time we were there, there was a tremendous amount of good-will to the club after just getting rid of Bitchtits, it wouldn't be the same next time and people would see our plight as self-inflicted.

If we were to drop to the bottom of the table I would think we would push forward the summer spending money and just do it in January and get the players and manager in.

The only thing that would get us relegated is if these changes were as big of a disaster as Fletcher with players and staff rebelling, but I think we've learned the lesson now.

eagwgw wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 10:49 am The financials say that relegation would be a disaster.

At the last annual accounts (end 2018) the club owed c.£3m to Eagle (there is also equity of c.£2m for the owners). Eagle itself had c.£2m in cash, which I think covers the losses for last season and this season, although Bonne/Koroma sales would be significant.

We can use the word 'refinancing' but it may mean very little, pushing of debts from current to non-current for example on the same terms. I'd be delighted if some was written off, but I can't see why anyone would do that.

Relegation would decrease revenues sharply. Last time we were there, there was a tremendous amount of good-will to the club after just getting rid of Bitchtits, it wouldn't be the same next time and people would see our plight as self-inflicted.

If we were to drop to the bottom of the table I would think we would push forward the summer spending money and just do it in January and get the players and manager in.

The only thing that would get us relegated is if these changes were as big of a disaster as Fletcher with players and staff rebelling, but I think we've learned the lesson now.

Not unless we make backroom changes.

I think one thing that is being continually overlooked this season is we’ve played most of it without our two best strikers.

Having to rely on Matt Harrold, who to be fair to the old boy has put a right good effort in, we were always going to struggle as he was never great from the start even at conference level. Alabi is an ongoing joke of a footballer and whilst Angol made no impact yesterday, there’s definitely a player in there and Wilkinson was pretty outstanding in the games preceding his stupid red card and then subsequent injury.

Year after year our luck with injuries is terrible at this club for whatever reason and this year it’s no different. Angol and Wilkinson aren’t world beaters but the point is if you take the two best strikers out of any League 2 side this year, you watch the results slide, simple as that

Jman wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 11:12 am I think one thing that is being continually overlooked this season is we’ve played most of it without our two best strikers.

Having to rely on Matt Harrold, who to be fair to the old boy has put a right good effort in, we were always going to struggle as he was never great from the start even at conference level. Alabi is an ongoing joke of a footballer and whilst Angol made no impact yesterday, there’s definitely a player in there and Wilkinson was pretty outstanding in the games preceding his stupid red card and then subsequent injury.

Year after year our luck with injuries is terrible at this club for whatever reason and this year it’s no different. Angol and Wilkinson aren’t world beaters but the point is if you take the two best strikers out of any League 2 side this year, you watch the results slide, simple as that

That's down to the failure to strengthen the squad. We had warnings last season, only one spell all season when we didn't have Bonne & Koroma upfront and we struggled badly during that period with lack of quality on the bench.

This summer any sensible onlooker would've expected Alabi to be moved on and at least one additional striker coming in on top of the like-for-like replacements of Bonne and Koroma (in reality we haven't replaced Bonne's tireless running, which is another issue)

You can't start a season in a higher league assuming a new unproven strike pairing, a 35 y/o and a semi-pro player is going to be enough. Back in August I thought it was a huge risk if one of the new guys gets injured and here we are.

Then loaning out our only other striker at the club is absolutely bizarre. Mr Ling please step forward and explain your working as it seems absolutely bizarre to everyone else.

I also don't think our injuries this year are just down to bad luck. The fitness levels are appalling compared to last season, players seem to be getting injured in training with alarming regularity and not preparing themselves coming off the bench. Have to question the change in fitness coaching staff over summer, have the club recruited poorly there too?

Fletcher OK'd Ruel going out on loan so I don't think that is solely on Ling.

Fletcher must have also known that Alabi was much maligned here, but his only real impression of him might have been the Grimsby game, and he did OK in that.

The real error was taking him off the list, the best course of action would have been the one that Justin did with Mooney, if the player isn't willing to move and does not offer much to the team just cut him out and eventually the board will have to settle him up rather than risk him upsetting others.

Having said that, we were still scoring goals with Angol out. Players like Brophy, JMD, Dennis will be capable of scoring, but they are not going to be consistent (or in the case of Dennis, consistently poor). I do believe our chance creation is still good overall. There have been spells in the past (Ling's last few games for instance) where you wondered where a goal was gonna come from.

The real problem is the defence and the midfield covering them. The first goal yesterday is a case in point, the ball into the box is as poor as they come, yet still results breaking to a guy on the edge of the box with loads of time to line up a shot.

Yup, the pattern of not closing down players and giving them a free shot has been played out again and again this season.

Contrast that to Scunthorpe yesterday, who sprinted out like men possessed and threw themselves in front of shots to prevent them getting as far as the keeper. That's just basic workrate and commitment.

POSHO wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 10:14 am My main concern is whether he has the authority or bottle to make radical team selections

Very good point. I think RE will certainly have the authority to make changes - especially given the gilt edged invitation he has been offered to take over - so long as he does it within budgetary constraints. Like you I’m less sure that he has the bottle to upset what seems to be a rather too cosy set up.

I was thinking more of the match day team. I don't think he would insist on any particular player movements in Jan

Telling the squad to their faces that half of them are no good and they're for the heave ho isn't very clever.

Yogi Hughes at Hibs did the same thing a few years back and lo and behold from a relatively safe position they were relegated.

Let's hope that doesn't happen at Orient but I'm not convinced this team are good enough to avoid relegation.

Max B Gold wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 2:11 pm Telling the squad to their faces that half of them are no good and they're for the heave ho isn't very clever.

Yogi Hughes at Hibs did the same thing a few years back and lo and behold from a relatively safe position they were relegated.

Let's hope that doesn't happen at Orient but I'm not convinced this team are good enough to avoid relegation.

They will.

Agree with dis, it can hit the play off places with the ability within it. I hope the trio of Ross, Danny and Jobi sort out the mess we've found ourselves in.

What has happened to Fletcher may mean other applicants will be put of, as it clear it is going take sometime for the coaching staff to come to terms with the loss of Justin. I just don't think they are ready for any 'outsider'.