Leyton Orient (H), Tuesday 13th Oct, 7.00pm

Match Centre 24/25 Match Centre 20/21
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"With Orient colours waving"

(Milton)

We welcome the O’s as they seek to maintain their 100% League 2 away record (EDIT - they drew at Barrow last Saturday), just as we look to maintain our 100% League 2 home record … (EDIT - we drew against Colchester Utd, same day). Orient have had many changes over the years - they started life as Clapton Orient, adopting the title of Leyton Orient after World War II. In 1966 the shortened name of Orient was introduced, but in 1987 it was back to Leyton Orient again. Their home grounds have also been varied, starting at Glyn Road, moving to Millfields (originally a whippet racing ground), then Lea Bridge Stadium (used for Speedway racing), then in 1937 going to Brisbane Road. In the 1930’s their Lea Bridge ground was closed for urgent repairs (following a complaint from Torquay United), and their next two home games were played at Wembley Stadium with one of those fixtures attracting a crowd of 1,916…

Current form (ignoring 5 pre-season friendlies)

5th September Forest Green (A) Carabao Cup - Won 1-2
8th September Brighton & Hove U-21 (H) F L Trophy - Won 3-2
12th September Oldham Athletic (A) League 2 - Won 0-1
15th September Plymouth Argyle (H) Carabao Cup - Won 3-2
19th September Mansfield Town (H) League 2 - Drew 2-2
3rd October Cheltenham Town (H) Lost 0-2
10th October Barrow (A) Drew 1-1

The O’s do have a midweek fixture coming up on Tuesday 22nd September, when Tottenham Hotspur will be their visitors in the Carabao Cup - I wonder whether Gareth Bale will be on show?

There is, of course, one massive connection between our two clubs in the playing and managerial functions, in the form of Dean Smith. He made 239 appearances for Orient and re-joined them as Assistant Manager to Martin Ling, leaving in 2009 when he and Ling were shown the door after a bad run of form. Dean went on to be appointed as Youth Team manager at Walsall, and the rest is history, although he has recently blotted his copybook by joining a very minor Midlands League team called Aston Villa…

There is a family connection in Orient’s current playing strength - full back Sam Ling is Martin Ling’s son.

Prediction? The only certainty about **Darrell Clarke’**s team selection for this one is that he won’t be able to call on the services of Danny Guthrie (which may or may not make a whole world of difference). There are plenty of other names to juggle with if Darrell feels like “tinkering”, but it’s very tempting to feel that we should be able to find the net - after all, Andy Cook scored one and won the penalty for the other goal in their Mansfield Town game. However, it should be noted that Orient were 0-2 down with 10 minutes to go and came back for a 2-2 draw. So … let’s have a 2-1 home win shall we? Goals from Elijah and Wes!

UTS

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Highlights of Mansfield’s trip to Orient.

I think there’ll be goals in this. Both Walsall and orient look shaky at the back. Fortunately Walsall also look reasonably threatening up front.

I’m saying 3-1 To the saddlers. Two from Gordon and 1 from osadebe

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Sorry Andy … Those “highlights” were purely the Mansfield team’s coach loading up and departing!! Incidentally, only about 25% of the players were wearing masks.

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Ah you spotted my deliberate mistake.

Here are the highlights of orient v Mansfield.

https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/12076407/leyton-orient-2-2-mansfield

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Blimey they are in good form

But I’ll stick with my 3-1 :+1:

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They will be tired after playing Spurs

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That’s what we thought about Harrogate, having played The Baggies midweek… :wink:

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Don’t get too excited about Saturday … a number of O’s players have tested positive for Covid …

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Interesting in the article I read there is no mandatory testing for players now, or any kind of rules for when a match can/should be cancelled or forfeited.

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Get their youth team playing.

Home Win. On our way.

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By all accounts, it seems as if they can’t play they have to forfeit the game. Not 100% on that but I have seen it mentioned several times.

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I’ve seen that too.

If they send a reserve side, surely they have to guarantee that the players and staff they send on Saturday would need to have been bubbled from those infected which is nigh on impossible. Otherwise their players will pass to ours and so on as we play other sides.

It isn’t a surprise that this has happened. Whilst at work footballers are being all bubbled up, when they aren’t at work there will be a few dickheads who socialise liberally whilst many more will have kids of school age who are mixing with hundreds of others on a daily basis.

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So how have the Premier League been managing? There have been several cases, but they seem to continue. Is it just a case of testing?

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There’s no way they will be forced to forfeit in the current circumstances. No way the league want to be seen to be forcing potentially Covid infected players to play

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At this rate i can see games being postponed and a backlog of games.

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Look on the bright side. If it is postponed it will be rearranged until later in the season when we might have a better chance of being able to attend.

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I don’t know but I guess it is just a hugely ramped up testing regime. If PL are tested every day with results within say an hour then they can probably manage it far better than if there are days between tests and results.

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What you say makes complete sense. However, there seems to be little sense being used anywhere these days.

Makes sense to just rearrange, but you do wonder if we may get into a struggle to finish the season again.

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Yeah, and also further reason to think they won’t be forced to play or forfeit. More and more games are going to be effected as the winter goes on, I can’t see them making that rod for their own back before potentially having to suspend fixtures for the entire league later on.

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