Murder on the Orient Express. Home to Leyton O, Sat 23rd Dec, 15:00

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Waddaya know, the old "Jerome for defensive corners" thing worked.

Pompey 1-1 at FT

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

and Oxford go 2-1 down in added time

We win!

[Mar]

Jesus wept, clinging on at the end there.

Ashworth nowhere near his man, Sheehan putting in the graft to get it clear. Fair play to Sheehan to keep going like he did.

[officer_dibble]

Pleased we’ve won but disgraceful second half. That squad needs reinforcements if we want to go up.

[jmjhb]

Whew! That'll do. Decent results elsewhere overall too.

[Gravdigger]

And Breathe!

[DJBlu]

Never been angry at a win before.

Evatt showing either extreme stupidity or naivity.

Lucky man.

[Mar]

Portsmouth drew 1-1
Peterborough won 2-1
Bolton won 3-2
Derby won 3-1 (Thursday)
Oxford lost 2-1
Stevenage lost (2-1)
Barnsley won (2-1)

Seemingly a good day results wise. Performance wise, we'd gone a bit Jekyll an Hyde.

Do we have a club psychologist?

[Mar]

Never been angry at a win before.

Evatt showing either extreme stupidity or naivity.

Lucky man.

Surely the Gary Megson times would've let you to be fuming at questionable almost throw away wins.

[McD]

Pleased we’ve won but disgraceful second half. That squad needs reinforcements if we want to go up.

Or maybe a manager that has a game-plan and a plan-b

[Worthy4England]

Lucky lads. Good HT from them, bringing on a walking yellow card. Unlucky not to get a point.

But what do points make? We'll have 'em thanks.

[TANGODANCER]

BIg thanks D.J.B. as ever.

[TANGODANCER]

We were lucky. Better teams will plaster us if we play like that second half. It was almost like.." Oh, we're three up, that'll do. Merry Christmas." Charles is a real trier and has moments of brilliance.... but he's missed two in the last couple of days that Sharron could have scored. Needs addressing...

[nicholaldo]

I find it difficult to shake the feeling we have an undercurrent of naivety running through the club.

The only thing that mattered today, though, was that we won no matter how and we've done that.

[officer_dibble]

Pleased we’ve won but disgraceful second half. That squad needs reinforcements if we want to go up.

Or maybe a manager that has a game-plan and a plan-b

He’s got plenty of credit in the bank. As he should. But I can’t at the moment find a credible response to what his plan B was, and what he did to change it second half. There were 3 decent chances for an equaliser last 15 minutes, including one for Darren fecking pratley. Had one of them gone in….i dread to think.

[BWFC_Insane]

I find it difficult to shake the feeling we have an undercurrent of naivety running through the club.

The only thing that mattered today, though, was that we won no matter how and we've done that.

Naivety and mental weakness.

Completely on top. Pratley comes on they make it a physical game and we collapse all over the pitch.

We need to change the mindset because it’s a flat track bully one. As soon as something even minor goes against us it’s shambolic.

Clung on for dear life but let’s fix the problems rather than ignore them.

[irie Cee Bee]

Important 3 points. After a comfortable first half the change of tactics by Leyton in the second unhinged us. The dreaded "press" which is our kryptonite. Credit to Forrester, Dempsey, Sheehan, Thomason and Toal who put their bodies on the line to keep us in front in that 2nd half. I am really surprised that teams who come here as underdogs dont realize our weakness and not sit back. The top teams do this, hence our struggles with them.

We on the other hand need to break out of our passing habits when the press is on, and look to hit it into the spaces behind the press to our forwards who should drop into those spaces that open up in behind, something Jerome and Ade did when they came on. We need to work on that. If we get better at that, we will be fine.

[Mar]

Pre match I said the performance mattered, others said the result mattered most for our season. We got a mixture of both.

We got the result, the first half performance and a second half performance that leaves us unsettled, with us reflecting as per the last few defeats. Thankfully we got the win so we're one step closer to where we need to be.

The physical battle unsettled us and our inability to kill off the game certainly leant itself to Orient coming back into the game. There's no reason why an elder statesman like Darren Pratley should change the game the way it has. We should be expecting the physicality and dealing with it a little bit better.

For everyone wanting a plan b or complaining about management decisions, it's a little bit surprising. It's year on year progression. This looks like a season we should be getting promoted. Making the right decisions to address the issues over the next few weeks could be crucial. Fair few players absent such as CMG and Jones needs addressing.


Boxing days fixture is going to be interesting. Certainly expecting Maghoma to be back.

[dave the minion]

Waddaya know, the old "Jerome for defensive corners" thing worked.

Pompey 1-1 at FT

It's almost as if we have a manager who knows what he's doing....

[GhostoftheBok]

Dead simple game.

Sheehan and Dempsey have plenty of "desire" and "heart", but they physically can't cover the ground - so when both are in the same midfield we lose too many 2nd balls.

At the back only Forrester would put his foot on the ball and play and neither striker could hold it up, so it kept coming right back at us.

They pressed, we hoofed, they won the ball (either their defender or the second in midfield) and they came back at us.

First half an hour or so we played football and it looked very easy. When we stopped playing football it was exactly the game they wanted.

You don't need to ignore the problems, but in order to fix them you need to identify the right problems.

Wellens did. Fair play to him. He saw the issues in midfield and at the back and in the second half he pressed the right buttons.

Oh, also they ran in down our left until Forrester got to grips with things. He's 22 and was the only player at the back taking responsibility. Toal is absolutely not ready to be at the centre of our defence. Was once again terrified of the ball whenever anything went wrong - to the point even Evatt waved them off from playing out through Toal eventually.

Love Eoin, but he has got to get more comfortable on the ball under pressure or he won't make it here in the long term.