It took all of 10 minutes for a familiar feeling of frustration to come washing over me at Oakwell on Saturday afternoon. Once again Orient were unable to follow up an improved performance at home to Luton with another encouraging one, an all too familiar failing throughout 2025/26 so far.

Either in an attempt to shore things up at the back, or as a needs-must selection based on the growing number of players currently unavailable, we opted for a three at the back formation. Going a goal down so early seemed to very much take the wind out of our sails, and frankly we seemed a little bit lost in knowing how to respond to conceding. 

Somehow or other we managed to first equalize and then take the lead: Dom Ballard coolly despatching a penalty after Barnsley keeper Murphy Cooper was adjudged to have brought down Ollie O’Neill in the area, and then O’Neill himself made it 2-1 after working space for a shot in the penalty area. Going in ahead at the break seemed somewhat fortunate, the general consensus amongst the travelling support was that we were lucky to even be level, let alone in the lead.

As gaffer Richie Wellens said after the match, through the second half we seemed to want to drop deep and protect our lead rather than being aggressive and going for a third goal to kill off the match. As we have seen all too often this season, we are not good enough as a defensive unit to be able to manage that effectively, and sadly it came as little surprise when we conceded an equalizer in the 77^th minute, and then the winner in the 85^th. What’s that old joke about why you shouldn’t let Orient players walk your dog as they can’t hold onto a lead?

All 3 goals we conceded can for me be put down to a combination of sloppy defending and individual errors. Quite what Tom James was trying to do on Barnsley’s third is anyone’s guess! That brought up a total of 33 goals conceded this season, unsurprisingly still the highest number in the entire division. As simple as it is to say, we just cannot carry on shipping goals at this rate if we are to have any hopes of success this season.  

When quizzed about our shocking defensive record by Dave Victor, Richie’s response was “we need a couple of new players, we need new life into our defence, we’ve not had it for what 2,3 years.” A valid point of course, but it does beg the question of how our summer recruitment went wrong?

Despite bringing in so many new players over the summer, we find ourselves short in the defensive positions. No one could foresee losing REG to a season-ending injury relatively early on, but were we seriously banking on the fact that Omar Beckles, Dan Happe and Jack Simpson would be available through the entire campaign? The injury track record of all three suggests that might have been somewhat misguided.

Equally we seem to be short in the full back positions. After overcoming some initial injury problems Michael Craig seems undoubtedly to be the first choice at right back/ right wing back with presumably Tom James seen as cover on both sides. Although the latter’s recent defensive struggles (thinking Wycombe and Barnsley in particular) mean that we may want to revisit that theory. After that it is case of repurposing a midfielder such as Sean Clare or Charlie Wellens to fill in.

On the left hand side I think it is fair to say that the jury remains out on Tayo Adaramola. There is clearly pace and talent in his game, more evident from an attacking perspective, but has he developed that defensive nous yet to suggest we can rely on him as a first choice left back/ left wing back? I am guessing here, but I assume that Demitri Mitchell was initially seen as an option there, but injuries have restricted him to a limited number of appearances, and when he has played he has looked more suited as a winger to my admittedly unexpert eyes.

Additionally, after a run of solid enough performances after replacing Tommy Simkin as the starting goalkeeper, Killian Cahill’s form has wobbled recently. Are we going to persist with the player on a permanent contract, bring Simkin back, or look at another option?

While it seems to be the go-to response in modern football that the transfer market is the curer of all woes, in reality are we going to be able to find the defensive options we know we need and convince them to join us in January? Hindsight is a wonderful thing but perhaps the balance of our summer recruitment was wrong, with too many midfielders coming in and not enough proven defensive knowhow.   

Whatever we do in January, there are still five hugely important league matches to go before we can even think about that. We need to find a way of getting more organised defensively, stop conceding sloppy and avoidable goals, and give our forward players a base on which to build. Next up is the visit of a Bradford City side that has made a hugely impressive start to life in League 1, how many of us can truly say we are confident that next week we will be looking back at an impressive home win?

Up the O’s!