Guardian Sport
Leyton Orient fan Rowland Lyons shares his thoughts
3:38pm Wednesday 22nd February 2012
Orient's home hoodoo struck once again on Saturday. So, what’s the solution? If I knew, I would probably be a candidate for the England manager’s job. Is it the formation? Lack of vocal support? An anxiety amongst some of our players? Answers on a postcard please!
To be honest, it’s our away form that’s keeping our heads above the parapet – ten points at the moment – but a margin that could so easily be whittled away after we literally threw the three points away.
If our good away record goes south, then we have to start winning at home – but when’s that going to happen?
Damningly, it seemed almost ominous that once we had taken the lead with Jonathan Téhoué’s sublime header – almost a year to the day after he netted in that famous Arsenal cup-tie - Scunthorpe always looked dangerous on the break.
But, what mystified me most was the change of line-up after the midweek Bournemouth success. With a supposedly fully fit squad, I was surprised Marc Laird and Terrell Forbes were left out in favour of loan man Solomon Taiwo and Leon McSweeney, respectively. I always assumed you should never change a winning team and the way we set up gave me grave concerns – especially when we went 4-4-2 with the more defensively minded centre-of-the-park men Taiwo and Matt Spring still on the pitch after half-time.
The late introduction of George Porter should have provided us with an outlet on the right wing. But, at that stage – and even with the game in the balance at 1-1 - I felt Scunthorpe had the advantage, but it took kamikaze defending to hand them the three points.
Even at 2-1, the Iron were still trying to close up the game and it was the hapless Lee Butcher – probably the star of our revival since last autumn - who dropped the ball for Jon Parkin to net and land himself with an exit on the stretcher for his pains.
All in all, a bad day at the office and with no midweek game, it’s going to be a long week before we make the reasonably long trip to Bury. It’s a place where we have picked up positive results in recent years and I can’t see any reason why we can’t go up there and get maximum points. No pressure, naturally!
And, if you thought our Saturday couldn’t get any worse, it was sad to see on the ‘Football League Show’ our former skipper, Stephen Purches, suffering a serious looking leg injury during their defeat at Rochdale. I am sure all O’s fans will want to wish him a speedy recovery.
Keep the faith, Up the O’s.