So another week and another disappointing defeat to discuss!

On Sunday afternoon as we were conducting our usual post-mortem of Orient’s defeat at home to bottom-of-the-table Port Vale, I told the missus that I was so sick of writing the same thing week in week out, so she suggested we ask AI what is wrong with Orient. Here’s what it came up with:

What is going wrong with Leyton Orient?   1) Defensive Vulnerability- The most glaring issue is the defence. Despite being among the higher scorers in the division, the O’s have one of the worst defensive records in League One. The main underlying factors behind this are: individual errors and goalkeeper & full-back vacancies. 2) A “Disastrous” Summer Recruitment- The board sanctioned a 30% increase in the playing budget for the 2025/26 season, bringing in 15 new players. However, this high turnover has backfired. 3) Injury Crisis- Injuries have decimated the squad’s consistency. Richie Wellens has been forced to “chop and change” both personnel and formations nearly every week. This has led to a “sideways passing” style of play that fans find frustrating and bereft of the high-intensity identity seen in previous seasons. 4) Friction and Pressure: – Wellens’ Frustration: There is a growing sense of tension. Wellens has been scathing of his players’ attitudes after losses, leading some to wonder if the squad is still fully responding to his demands. – Board Sentiment: The Board of Directors released a statement in January 2026 expressing their own “frustration and disappointment” with the league position, putting additional pressure on the footballing staff.

Forgive me for being something of a middle-aged technology-cynic, but I am pretty sure we reached those conclusions ourselves! (Orient Nerd Weekly Ramblings: Where has it all gone wrong for Orient?).

Of course, in football, as in any walk of life, it is one thing to identify what is going wrong, quite another to address the issues and to start to put things right. The frantic activity in the transfer window, especially the final day which saw us bring in a total of 5 new players on top of the recruitment of Will Forrester, Kaelan Casey, Ajay Matthews and Daniel Bachmann earlier in the month; suggests very much that it has been recognised that the failures of the summer window needed to be addressed, and drastically.

Unquestionably the biggest issues were our inability to bring in an experienced senior goalkeeper and a recognised and effective left back. Bachmann was clearly seen as the established goalkeeper that we all knew we needed, the fact that he sustained a freak injury in the warm-up before the Port Vale match cannot be blamed on anything other than sheer and utter bad luck.

In response we have secured two new goalkeepers: Will Dennis on loan from Bournemouth and Tobi Oluwaymi signed on a short-term contract from Celtic with a potential option to extend. However, reading between the lines of what was said at Tuesday evening’s Q&A on YouTube, alongside the relative inexperience of the pair suggests that these acquisitions might be seen as “emergency solutions”, rather than the real answer to our ongoing search for the senior man between the posts. Rather worryingly, we may find ourselves in a similar position again come the summer. In any case Dennis is reportedly injured and probably won’t be available at Edgeley Park on Saturday. It also raises the question of where this leaves Killian Cahill?

James Morris, who we were apparently close to signing in the summer, eventually arrived from Watford after a long, drawn-out process. Hopefully Morris has the requisite quality and defensive ability to finally go some way to filling the rather large gap left by Jack Currie’s departure at the end of last season.

Dylan Levitt, a midfielder signed on a 1½ year deal from Hibernian, was apparently on our radar before the start of the season, but his arrival at this stage of the campaign does call into question how the futures of the likes of: Tyreeq Bakinson, Azeem Abdullai, Charlie Wellens and Sean Clare are seen.  Similarly, does the loan signing of Favour Fawunmi, a winger from Stoke City, suggest that Josh Koroma has disappointed since his return to the club?

As anyone who has watched Orient this season can’t have failed to recognise, the sheer turnover of players in the summer meant that it was always going to take time for Richie Wellens to settle on a first-choice line-up and to get them to play the way he wanted. Of course injuries to key players have made that even more challenging, but it could be argued that we haven’t got anywhere near that so far this term. With 9 players coming in and 9 going out again, and just 17 league games to go, time is not a luxury we have for what remains of this campaign!

Of those departing, the Omar Beckles situation is a completely baffling one. Awarded a new 2-year contract and the captaincy ahead of 2025/26, to then find that he was frozen out of the club to the extent that no captain’s column was included in Saturday’s matchday programme screams of a falling out behind the scenes. While we will probably never be privy to exactly what went down, the situation doesn’t suggest a happy squad and coaching team all pulling in the same direction so far this season.

On Thursday evening the missus and I were fortunate to be able to attend the “Meet the Manager” event at the Supporters Club. As usual it was great to be able to hear from Richie directly without the need for him to be guarded in what he was saying, although he did very nearly give away the location of the new stadium!

Without wanting to betray any confidences, he revealed that recruitment and contract management with a limited budget such as ours requires some creative thinking and a large dose of compromise we aren’t privy to from the outside.

Quite what the rest of the season has in store remains to be seen of course.  The priority is crystal clear though: we need to start getting points on the board and climbing away from the danger zone as quickly as possible. If not then I fear that tougher questions will be asked of the recruitment process, management and coaching staff going forward. A much improved performance and a good result tomorrow afternoon would be an excellent place to start.

Up the O’s!