“Letting goals in, and cheaply, is proving to be a real Achilles heel for us, and in many ways is undoing the good work we are putting in to try to develop our attacking cohesion.” (Orient Nerd Weekly Ramblings: No Case for the Defence)

When I wrote those words last week, I was hopeful that ongoing lessons might have been learned, and we would go into the match away at Cardiff with a real focus on tightening up our defence. Well what do I know? Instead what we got was a defensive display that was bordering on the shambolic.

Switching to three centre backs and two wingbacks felt like a move aimed at strengthening our rearguard but combing that with a system that paired Aaron Connolly and Dom Ballard upfront with Charlie Wellens operating as a Number 10 behind them, served to leave wingbacks Tayo Adaramola and Sean Clare very exposed.

Speaking after the match, a clearly frustrated Richie Wellens highlighted that fact that even though we aren’t conceding that many clear cut chances, at the moment too many of them are ending up in the back of our net. The gaffer also suggested that from an attacking sense it was “a brilliant performance” and that he felt sorry for the travelling supporters as “they should have seen a win today.”

All well and good but any team that concedes four goals so cheaply is always going to struggle to win a match. The sheer inarguable fact is that we are now officially the worst defensive side in the division having conceded 22 goals in our 11 matches so far and are getting drawn closer to the dreaded relegation spots with each game we lose. Richie suggested that we are not “far away” and from an attacking perspective I can see that, but we simply cannot continue to ship goals the way that we are.

It feels like we have reached the stage where we need to take stock of where we are and perhaps rethink our approach by focusing first on being hard to beat. When I was reflecting on Saturday’s performance (read: sulking on the train on the way back from Cardiff on Sunday afternoon!) I couldn’t help but think back to the autumn of 2017 when Justin Edinburgh took over what was a struggling side in our first season exiled in the National League.

One of the first things that Justin did was to change the goalkeeper bringing in Dean Brill and focusing on stopping us from conceding goals so easily. While some of the performances weren’t exactly full of glorious free-flowing football, it served to very much steady the ship and give us a solid base from which to build. Might Richie be tempted to follow suite?

Tommy Simkin’s recent performances between the posts have drawn quite a bit of criticism, so might it be time to give Killian Cahill a run of games to see if he fares any better? While we can’t guarantee that he will have a similar impact to that of Josh Keeley this time last season, it would at least be doing something different. With Simkin away on international duty with England Under-21’s this weekend then Cahill will inevitably start against Doncaster tomorrow afternoon. 

In front of Simkin the constant chopping and changing of the personnel in our backline, largely due to injury but also in some cases based on form, hasn’t allowed our defensive unit to develop any cohesion. While injuries are inevitable, we really need to try to establish some consistency in both the personnel selected and the way that we set up at the back.

It seems all too easy to suggest that we are missing the solidity offered by Jordan Brown and/or Darren Pratley as our defensive midfield shield, but we really are. Equally it is not certain which one of our central midfield options is supposed to be the defensive-minded one. In his previous spells with the club El Miz was most usually paired with one of Pratley or Brown, is anyone in this current squad capable of fulfilling that role alongside the Tunisian? Sean Clare has been in and out of the team and on some occasions utilised as a defender, while Tyreeq Bakinson seems to be more of a box-to-box type midfielder. Other than that our midfield options are more attacking-minded.

Whatever we do, whether we change things up or look to stick with a settled selection and develop from there, we really need to start getting wins on the board and picking points up quickly. In our next three matches we face: newly promoted Doncaster, a struggling Rotherham and a Lincoln side that has started the season well; while it is still early in the season it really does feel as if we need to get some results from those three matches. If not we will be going into the first round of the FA Cup very much looking over our shoulders, just like we were last season.

On a different note the club released an update from majority shareholder, David Gandler, on Tuesday. While the statement itself didn’t really tell us very much new, it at least confirmed the ongoing progress of our plans to develop a new stadium, that we all (reluctantly perhaps) accept we desperately need. As fans we are obviously desperate to learn the eventual location of the new stadium and what it is going to look like, but for now I guess we are just going to have to remain patient.  

Tuesday evening at least saw us win a match for the first time in what feels like quite a while, even if it was only the Vertu Trophy. Although when Crawley took the lead in the third minute, I can’t have been alone n fearing the worst. Thankfully we managed to get the victory in the end, even if it did take the introduction on Dom Ballard and Aaron Connolly to achieve it.

Here’s hoping for another rendition of “Rockin’ All Over the World” tomorrow afternoon after a much-improved defensive performance.

Up the O’s!