But let's not get on the players' backs: it really does seem like they are trying ("Yes, very trying!" Lolz) and they actually looked pretty shellshocked at the final whistle. The trouble was that they also played like they were shellshocked for the preceding 90 minutes.
Jump off your seat moment... The goalmouth scramble in the sixth minute of added time during which seven separate Orient players attempted to score into an open net from two inches, and yet each failed to do so. To be honest, luck isn't on our side at the moment – on another day, for example, one of the two shots we had on target in the entire game might have fluked a deflection and gone in.
Give that man a medal... Given a rare start in the even rarer position of lone striker, Shaun Batt deserved his well-taken goal and acquitted himself pretty well. And by that I mean he didn't fall over as much as usual. Lowry, Vincelot and Cox also tried their hearts out. Even Jobi McAnuff didn't play badly. Instead he opted not to play at all.
Adam Legzdins |
"Fuck the technical shit"... Or, as Fabio Liverani would put it: "Cazzo la merda tecnica". God only knows what the new Italian-speaking gaffer was saying when instructing Romain Vincelot on the touchline, but the outcome was that the midfielder was last seen in Leyton Asda trying to buy truffle oil. But let's give Liverani time before we write him off (or Mr Becchetti fires him). After all, if he's going to insist upon playing Scott Cuthbert up front for the final 15 minutes of each game then at least we're going to be in for some fun in League Two.
Meanwhile on YouTube... Dancing girls! Drum and bass! Chiselled-jawed Azzurri! Yes, it can only be another trailer for the Leyton Orient reality show, currently taking Italy by storm (in a teacup). Sit back and enjoy watching 22 Italians playing in an empty Brisbane Road while remembering it was only seven months ago that we were beating Peterborough on the way to the play-off final. How times change...