Unbeaten away run hits the buffers at Leyton

I took the tube and arrived early in the multi-cultural suburb that is Leyton, so went off for a double halal burger and chips before the start. It set me back £4, with a can of coke, so all the noise about London prices seemed to be rubbish. Until I went to buy a ticket, which at £24 represents a third more than the most we were paying last year. So everything’s not brilliant, being back in the football league.

But then we went in, and the Gas started arriving. By kick-off time there were over a thousand of us, making a frightful din, playing against a proper club, and it was brilliant to be back where we belong.

The O’s came out with a little old man at right back and a member of Musical Youth in midfield, but apart from that no one I noticed or knew anything about.

 
Rovers came out with the same team as last week, but with Lyttle stepping up from our Youth to fill the boots of injured man-in-form Danny Ledbitter. Apparently Lyttle is 17, but he doesn’t look it.
The bench was heavy with M’s – Mildy, the two new Mons, Mans and Matty – plus Gosling and Bodin, which seemed to me to provide a range of game-changing options.

Both teams started brightly enough, and the noise was pretty deafening at the back where I was standing. Orient played a pressing defence, whereas we sat back, kept our shape, and let them pass it. It wasn’t obvious that they were going to get through us, and we had two attacks in the first 15 minutes which had lovely end-to-end football. So classic home vs. away tactics, and it looked pretty tight and evenly balanced.

Easter got cornered between two of their players near the half-way line, and used his quick and silky feet to get through them. One of them stuck out a leg in frustration, and duly went in the book. He doesn’t always do a lot, but what he does do can look good at times.

Then a long ball into the box saw Lyttle beat their bloke to the header, after which, to the bemusement of everyone, the ref blew for a penalty. As far as I saw no Orient player appealed, nor did their crowd, and Rovers were too bemused to object. All very odd, but their bloke poked it up the middle while Chapman dived to his right, and we were one-nil down.

Rovers’ fans were pretty incensed, and one was fairly promptly chucked out by the Plod who provided a useful verbal outlet for fans’ anger over the next few minutes.

We almost struck back straight away, but then they dominated for a bit, always seeming to have more options and men in the middle than us, before we finally got our foot on the ball and a chance to dominate for about five minutes before half-time. We’d stuck with the Christmas tree formation, and we got a chance to see what they were trying to do, but we couldn’t seem to make it last.

When they were doing well it was often down our right. Their midfielders were finding space between Lines and Lyttle, and working the triangles well. It seemed to me that Lines was often marking space, leaving Lyttle to pick up two players, but the bloke next to me wondered if Lyttle hadn’t tuned into the team’s pattern of play yet.

In injury time Lyttle had the ball on the right and tried to beat his man. He half-did, but it cannoned off the O behind, and we lost the ball. In truth, he’d taken the wrong option. Orient turned it goal-ward and worked a good opportunity which they just squeaked past Chapman. A horrid way to end the half.

Second half Lyttle, who apart from the 2 mistakes and the holes with Lines, had looked very competent, was replaced by Monakana, and Ollie Clarke, who had also often found himself marking space (or maybe just ‘keeping the shape’) was replaced by Montano. The changes seemed to make sense, and showed attacking intent I thought.

Things were pretty even, with a bit more space opening up and Orient less able to press as the players tired. Play ebbed and flowed between the sides, with Orient making more chances and Chapman making some good stops.

Taylor came on for Easter who has been looking a bit fitter than before but still unable to really make his mark throughout games. It seemed to me to be a good call – a player who could help us shape the space that was now becoming available.

Taylor’s first few touches were pretty disastrous, though, and one misplaced cross-field ball set up a great Orient attack which almost resulted in a goal. If it had been Lyttle’s pass it definitely would have been a goal, given his luck on the day.

The still-deafening Gas started to get quite crotchety with the O’s at the end of the ground, and a few bits of ‘banta’ ended with a Rovers rendition of Blowing Bubbles. That probably has some irony for some of the critics of the Board on here.

Lines relinquished some of the set-piece deliveries towards the end, and they seemed to improve as a result. We had one free-kick which flashed within inches of the goal after the faintest of headers, but that was probably about as close to scoring as we came. Well, apart from one goalmouth scramble where one of our blokes knee’d it over the bar as a reflex when it was pinballing around between players.

Sincs got a bit more influential as the space developed to exploit his running, and Monakana looked very capable down the right flank, but we too often hoofed to short players up front (in one case it was Sincs, the smallest player on the field, who we hoofed to in hope).

We didn’t lack spirit, but we didn’t have many options beyond the hopeful running of Harrison upfront. When we did create options, it was when we moved forward as a team, but playing a ‘dropping back’ defence made that fairly rare.

I thought Lyttle was unfortunate, rather than had a ‘mare, but the rest of the team neither shone nor failed. Orient rode their luck, and probably edged it since they created more chances than us, but a draw or a one-goal defeat was probably a reflection of the game.

I walked back to the tube in some early-autumn drizzle. I had a headache from the noise of all that singing, but it felt like while we had been hoping for a big-match roller-coaster, we ended up with a Bank Holiday disrupted train journey.