After all the fun, drama and excitement of the giant-killing of Derby County last week, this week has felt a little bit “after the lord mayor’s show”. It’s not that I thought the goalless draw at Peterborough was especially disappointing, or that I will lose a great deal of sleep over exiting the Pizza Cup on Tuesday evening at the hands of Stevenage, it’s just that (inevitably?) things have just felt a bit subdued in Orient-land over the last seven days.

Maybe the early kick-off and the fact that it is a relatively short and easy trip to Peterborough played its part, but the whole build-up to last Saturday’s match just felt a little bit flat. Even though it was very early when we arrived and the weather was in no way as conducive as it had been in the September sunshine last season, we still managed to fit in a pre-match pint at the excellent Charters bar. If you haven’t had the experience, it is literally a bar on a barge on the river, and if the weather is decent there is a whole river bank that acts as a very pleasant outdoor area.

For some not explained reason, whereas last time we had been given the new stand behind one of the goals as the away end, this time we were to be housed in the old main stand along the side of the pitch. To say that it made Brisbane Road’s East Stand look like something approaching modern would be an understatement! To make matters even worse, due to the cramped conditions inside, the “catering facilities” (such as they were!) were basically two stalls outside, and the only “beer” option was a plastic bottle of Carling.

Due to Orient’s increasingly concerning lack of fit and available attacking personnel there was an immediate start for new loanee winger Dilan Markanday. To be fair despite the fact that he had the benefit of just one training session in which the rest of the squad were in recovery mode after the exertions of Tuesday night, he looked quite lively throughout, seems to fit the profile of attacking player that we know Richie likes, and given the injuries to Ollie O’Neill, Theo Archibald, Jordan Graham and Dan Agyei seems to be exactly the type of player we need right now.

The entire 90 minutes at London Road could best be described as attritional, with both sides trying, and largely failing, to get a grip of the game in midfield. The fact that there was a total of just 5 shots on target (4 by the hosts and just the solitary effort by Orient), tells you all you need to know about the lack of excitement in the match. Although for me as something of a football traditionalist, the ongoing tussle between our old-stager Darren Pratley and the younger protagonist and former O Hector Kyprianou, was entertainment enough. If I had to score it I would say that Prats just about shaded it on points!

As hard to watch as the match was, a point away from home should never be sniffed at. It extended our unbeaten run in the league to nine matches and keeps us within touching distance of the play-off places, albeit with some potentially key matches looming on the horizon.

Tuesday evening was a different kettle of fish altogether. If the atmosphere was subdued at Peterborough, it was completely non-existent against Stevenage. As I have covered many times before, I completely understand the antipathy of many fans to this competition, but it was a very uninspiring game, one that felt as if it almost had to be endured rather than enjoyed.

Whether it was the flatness around the more than three quarters empty ground, or simply that it was just one game too many in a relatively short space of time, but Orient just seemed off the pace throughout. Deploying DJ as the centre forward didn’t work. Sonny Perkins looked a shadow of the player who had impressed so much just seven days previously. Our play was slow and ponderous throughout with too many sideways and backwards passes, and when we went behind to a Brandon Cooper own goal you just knew that there was no way back for us.

Having found out during the trip to Peterborough that our prize if we could get past Stevenage would have been a home game against Birmingham City in the week before a certain FA Cup tie, maybe it is something of a veiled blessing in disguise that we won’t have that to worry about.  

On the subject of the Man City match, it was encouraging that the club have rightly chosen to keep the prices at the Category AA level and have outlined a sensible approach to allocating tickets with season card holders, then members, then those who had tickets for the Derby match being given priority. Although the presence of the fella selling dubious quality half and half scarves outside the game against Stevenage, and some of the ludicrous prices doing the rounds from ticket agencies on social media, suggests there may be a level of hoopla around the fixture that we haven’t seen before.

This week brought news of another signing, and a permanent addition at that, in the form of former Scotland youth international Azeem Abdulai from Swansea City. Abdulai is reportedly a central midfielder who can also operate in wide positions, so we will have to wait and see how he might slot into the team for the remainder of this season. Although personally I suspect his purchase might be more focused on the next campaign and beyond. Sensibly Lewis Warrington has been allowed to join Salford City on loan until the end of the season. We can only hope that he gains the experience he needs and comes back stronger and wiser if/when he returns to E10.

We are also trying to sign Sonny Perkins to a permanent deal which would resolve some of the issue about how many loan players we can include for each match. Richie Wellens also revealed that we have been in negotiations to bring in a striker, although that particular deal may prove too costly, and we might have to pivot to another winger to give us more attacking options. On the whole it seems we are actively working to address the areas in which we are short particularly at the top end of the team.

We now head into a challenging run of three matches in a week starting with the visit of 7^th placed Reading to Brisbane Road tomorrow afternoon. That’s followed by an always tough trip to Exeter on Tuesday evening, and then a home game against 6^th placed Stockport County.

Once again it feels like an important stretch for our burgeoning play-off ambitions. If we can come out the other side with our unbeaten league run intact, and having won at least one, hopefully more, of those games, then the belief might just continue to grow.

Up the O’s!