We three kings of Orient (A)re. Saturday 31 @ 15:00

[officer_dibble]

When does it open? January 1st? Best hope we are not cut adrift by then...

[GhostoftheBok]

I daresay Kioso would be delighted to be recalled. He will believe he has shown enough to be confident he can hit the ground running if he goes back. Leaves us in the lurch, though. He has given us a proper outlet. We talked about our lack of an out ball at the start of the season and he has offered that. The fact the backs could just hang a ball up towards him on the right when they were in trouble made them feel more able to play with freedom.

[officer_dibble]

Yep - having him and Brockbank competing aerially either side up top (as well as on the ground) has given us another dimension. Be a massive blow.

[GhostoftheBok]

Yep - having him and Brockbank competing aerially either side up top (as well as on the ground) has given us another dimension. Be a massive blow.

Shows how poor out team building was in the summer that we failed to sign an out-ball. Arrogance from Evatt, in my book.

[nicholaldo]

There's a good article HERE from Iles, which is supposedly a verdict on yesterday's match but is really his view on the wider situation as it currently stands. I agree with most of it, but particularly what he writes about expectation and how it might not be helping.

[officer_dibble]

Iles must be shitting himself. There’s no call for a reporter dedicated to a non-league club. I think his articles, player ratings etc have been as harsh as I would write and he generally (sensibly) keeps a counsel with the club, and softens post match reviews etc.

[nicholaldo]

Iles must be shitting himself. There’s no call for a reporter dedicated to a non-league club. I think his articles, player ratings etc have been as harsh as I would write and he generally (sensibly) keeps a counsel with the club, and softens post match reviews etc.

It does seem unusually strong. I'm not against it, though.

[GhostoftheBok]

Maybe if we went into non-league they'd give Marc his dream job of reporting on the rugby instead.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Bit of number-crunching. Some of it is confirmatory, some of it is counter-intuitive. I suspect we will all take what we want from it, even if it's nothing. Sadly, the data does not calibrate for "desire".

AT ORIENT v OVERALL
Weirdly enough, we had a season-high for efforts on goal (16); sadly none of them were on target (as per Grimsby).

We also restricted Orient to a season-low of attempts on goal (8; Grimsby, Barrow and Bradfordinthecup had 9). However, Orient were astonishingly accurate in getting 7 of these on target – the second-highest Crellin has faced after Newport (9).

Given all that, perhaps it's no so weird that in terms of xG, we got 1.5 to their 1.8. That’s our second-highest xG (Barrow 1.7) but also the second-highest we’ve allowed (Newport 2.4). Our xG was also higher than four winning teams at the weekend (and another three that got a point). Feel free to say "fine margins" bitterly.

OVERALL
While we’re on xG, according to Experimental 361 (HERE) our overall total in the 10 games thus far is 11.1 (us) to 12.9 (them), but our real goals tallies are 8 scored v 16 conceded. In other words, we’re not scoring with chances we should and we’re conceding shots we shouldn’t. By this measure (xG vs actual goals) only Stevenage, FGR and Bradford have less accurate finishing, while only Morecambe, Oldham and Southend have been as generous at the back.

Intriguingly, though, Experimental 361 doesn’t think we’re underachieving in points because of this: had match results reflected xG we’d still be on 9 points. As it awards theoretical draws to games with less than a third of a goal between the xG scores, we "should" have won at Barrow and Cambridge but not at Harrogate or home to Bradford.)

HERE, WhoScored’s player statistics have Billy Crellin making an average of 1.8 saves per game. Of the 24 League Two goalkeepers with 7+ league games, that’s 20th. (Cambridge’s goalie is second-bottom.)