East London's Finest - Leyton Orient

[Revotsew]

Quick Introduction

So, being born in Leytonstone and growing up in Leyton and Walthamstow, I have a special place in my heart for the local side - Leyton Orient.

In recent years, the roller coaster of Leyton Orient is a pretty well talked about, having lost in the League One Playoff final to Rotherham in the 2013/14 season then, one year on, being relegated back down to League Two. That coupled with the fight for the Olympic Stadium (which realistically they were never going to win) and most recently the arrest and potential extradition to Albania of Italian owner Francesco Becchetti make Leyton Orient a pretty interesting team for the country to sit back and watch unfold.

Pretty much every year for 5 or 6 years I've done a save with Orient, some more successful than others. The difference this time, however, is that they're back down in League Two for the first time since they got promoted in the 2005/06 season, which gives it an added challenge!

LETS GET STARTED!

 

[Revotsew]

Squad Report

So being pretty familiar to the side, it didn't take too much sifting and sorting for me to know my squad. Before I started I knew my strongest and weakest positions. Straight away, I knew my strongest players were ***, James, Baudry and Simpson, three of which remain from the side that came so close to promotion in League One, are all very very good for League Two and should help me get high up the table this season.

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In my opinion, Dean *** wouldn't look out of place at a low/mid championship team. Although not the quickest, he can play right across the midfield. I'm not too sure yet whether I'm going to play him on the right as a winger or on the left as an inside forward, but he's fully capable to do either so it really depends on what I can bring in around him.

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Another good midfielder, Lloyd James is a great passer of the ball. With his passing and vision, together with his decent defensive stats, make him a very good deep lying playmaker. I'll hopefully get someone a bit more aggressive with a bit more of an engine to partner him in centre midfield, to allow him to control the play and set the pace of a the game.

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Baudry is technically a very good defender. His 14 passing is also something I really like, cause I'm a big fan of building play from the back. Although his physicals do slightly let him down, I'm sure he's easily good enough for League Two.

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Jay Simpson is a striker most English Football Fans will be familiar with. A product of the Arsenal youth system, Simpson is a decent finisher with pace and strength that should cause some real issues in this league.

I've realised we've got lots of mediocre backup strikers, and a real weakness at full back. I've got no transfer budget and a very low wage budget, with Jobi McAnuff (who, at age 33, has lost his pace and is backup quality at best) as my highest earner on 5k/week I'm gonna have to do some auctioning off before I bring many quality players in.

 

[Revotsew]

Transfer Update

So, I've actually not been able to ship anybody out of here. Jobi McAnuff snobbed a move to Blackpool cause they weren't offering him high enough wages, so I guess that's a task that I'm gonna have to just keep persisting with. Worst case scenario is we're stuck with him and his contract runs out at the end of the season, so it's not too drastic.

On the other side, I've brought in 6 players, 4 of which are on loan.

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Zabavnik and Hanley are going to be my first choice full backs for this season. Hanley isn't quite the quality I was hoping for, but I unfortunately missed out on Zoumana Bakayogo on a free transfer after he chose Gillingham ahead of me. I know they're in League One but it seems like a mistake to me, Gillingham's a horrible place.

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Although he's arguably the best centre back I have at the club, Mbabu will initially start as my backup centre back, mainly to just avoid any more gelling issues than I need with the squad, especially with two new full backs already. A big selling point to me was his ability to cover the whole line of defence also, I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot of him this season.

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Rossiter is the man I've chosen to partner James in the centre of my midfield. Although physically he's not amazing, which could possibly be an issue, i'm hoping his defensive attributes will do the job.

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Correa is probably the best player I've brought in, and on surprisingly low wages. He's going to be first choice in the AMC position of a 4-2-3-1 formation, again I'm slightly worried about my three central players all being reasonably poor physically, I'm just hoping that our style of play will allow for a lot of time on the ball and for James and Correa to make things happen with their technical abilities and vision.

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A player that is very good physically, is Mason Bennett. I'm really not too sure what I'm gonna do with him yet, he might rotate with Simpson as a striker, I might train him to play on the left side as an inside forward and put *** out right or I may even play him out wide right as a winger, 11 crossing really isn't too poor. I'm hoping his pace and determination can really drag us through to scraping some points from tight games this season, whatever role he plays in the side.

I don't expect there to be any other business in this window, but I'll update you if there is!

Tactics

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So, this is my starting eleven for the season right now. I'm sure there will be changed and tweeks as the season goes on and certain players underperform or overperform, but going in to the first game of the season, this is how it stands.

I'm going to be playing slow, patient football, which I know can be difficult at this level but it's the kind of football I really want to drill in to the team going onwards from this point, as we hopefully climb the leagues. If you would like to see my team and player instructions, let me know, otherwise I'll keep it mysterious and interesting..

I'll update you on the first of September with any other transfer business and the first few games of the season!

 

[Revotsew]

August Update

Transfers

Making the most of loans, I brought in one more midfielder in to cover for Lloyd James and also Correa.

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I'm pretty sure he got decent on a save I had a couple of FM's ago, I definitely recognise the name for one reason or another. Anyway, both James and Correa seem to get tired out quite easily, and I don't have great backup for either so I've brought in Forster-Caskey as a bit of cover for both!

Matches

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I was quite nervous going in to this game with quite an advanced tactic for this level that my players weren't familiar with, I was worried my passing would be shoddy and my players would be out of position from pressing high up the pitch, and was having nightmares of realising after one game that I really needed to reevaluate, but all in all it was a decent game. I opted for Mbabu over Dunne purely for some pace in defence, which was maybe a mistake as he got a yellow card within 7 minutes, and another in the 59th minute, putting us down to 10 men. Just 3 minutes before Mbabu's red card, Correa calmly converted a penalty that Simpson had won. Despite narrowly dominating the game, and being solid for the most part, Barnet equalised in the 84th minute after Dunne, Mbabu's replacement, was caught out of position.

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I did play a slightly weakened team against a much stronger opposition, which resulted in a 4-2 smashing. There wasn't really many positives to take from this game, except Ollie Palmer's great performance which resulted in him getting an 8.3 rating.

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Good 2-0 away win for us, getting a good 65% possession too. Mbabu returned for us (and got on the score sheet with a solid header from a freekick) as I felt his pace was important to our defence, especially after Dunne was caught sleeping when he came on to replace him in the first league game. Palmer also started this game for us with Simpson out injured and his good performance against Nottingham Forest. *** topped off the display with the winning goal on the 90th minute, with a looped header over the keeper.

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A good start to this game as Palmer tucked home a good pass through from Correa, but an own goal after a terrible goalkeeping error made this game a bit tense for me. Mason Bennett got on the end of a good Henley cross to score a volley, but unfortunately got injured in the 65th minute. He'll be out for 2 months with a broken toe, which means high earner Jobi McAnuff is going to have to come in. Please hurry back Bennett...

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Another good win, Palmer smashing it past the keeper from a *** through ball on the counter attack. 60% possession is nice to see, and hopefully soon we'll start converting a couple more of all those shots we're having, cause not many of them are from distance!

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Another 1-0 win, another clean sheet, another game where we had lots of possession and lots of shots! Correa scored after Palmers effort was blocked by a defender.

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We're out of another cup, this time the Johnstones Paint Trophy. Can't say I'm too disappointed, cups aren't really my focus, although I wouldn't turn my nose up at a FA Cup run.. I played a weakened side and it showed, even though we scored the opening goal we never really looked like winning. Dunne was responsible for two of the goals, so there really isn't much pressure on Mbabu for the second centre back spot. Good to see Jobi earning his wages too.

So, after 5 league games this is how the table looks, can't say I'm disappointed!
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ALSO

If you guys want to see this done slightly different just let me know, I've not really done a story as such before, so perhaps I'm going OTT with the screenshots or OTT with the writing, or there isn't enough of either or whatever, please hit me with all the constructive criticism you can to make this the best read for you all that it can be! I don't plan on doing monthly updates, probably every two months with screenshots of all the best/worst/most interesting games, just did an August update as its the first few games of the season and the transfer window etc etc etc.

Hope you guys are enjoying it!

 

[dllu]

As a West Ham supporter I don't particular like the thread name, but good luck anyway...