*Note to self: Have you not learnt never to feel that Orient version 2025/26 have turned a corner form-wise! (Exhibit A:Orient Nerd Weekly Ramblings: Orient’s Reset Gets Off to an Encouraging Start).

Before we (yet again!) get stuck into what has gone so horribly wrong for Orient this season, here are some facts (with apologies for the subsequent depression that they might bring!):

• 25 new signings across the summer and January transfer windows
• 9 wins out of 31 league matches
• a Points Per Game ratio of 1.06
• 1 win, 2 draws, and 7 defeats in our last 10 matches
• 41 league goals scored (10^th highest in the division) but only 1 in our last 4 matches
• 52 goals conceded, the highest number in the division and a goal difference of -11
• 5 new goalkeepers and a grand total of just 6 clean sheets in 31 league matches (19%, the second worst in the division)

As I left Brisbane Road on Tuesday evening I must have cut a dejected and downbeat figure. All through the season I have hoped and believed that at some point the O’s would kick into some semblance of consistent form and start to climb up the table away from the dreaded dropzone.

Getting humbled at home by a Plymouth Argyle side, who may have been in decent form but haven’t exactly set League 1 alight this season, brought the stark realisation that no matter how the powers that be at the club, or indeed the manager, try to dress it up we are most definitely well and truly in a relegation battle.

Granted there were a few positive signs and even some grounds for guarded forward optimism after the hard-fought draw against Stockport, but that all went out of the window with Tuesday night’s defeat, in particular the meek surrender of a second half performance. Yet again we completely and utterly failed to follow up a decent result with another. To be quite frank, I have become sick and tired of waiting for it to start to come good and am now 100% resigned to watching us struggle to get out of the mess in which we have put ourselves with too many below par performances.

We can to a degree point to bad luck with injuries, but Aaron Connolly and El Miz aside how many of the actual first team squad were unavailable on Tuesday night? The bigger issue is the performance (or lack thereof!) levels of a large majority of the players that are supposedly fit and available.

Speaking after the defeat to Plymouth Richie Wellens highlighted some familiar failings: the opposition landing on too many second balls especially in midfield, giving the ball away in bad areas, slow and overly precise play, individual errors, a lack of structure in our play, and conceding from set pieces. We have heard similar points raised pretty much after every single one of our defeats this season, yet we never seem to learn or improve. Some of our failings, such as our inability to effectively deal with crosses into our box, especially corners, are not exactly things that have reared their head for the first time this season.

Without wanting to go over well-trodden ground yet again, for me the whole mess boils down to our disastrously ineffective recruitment in the summer, not just in terms of the ability of those coming in, but also our failure to address the glaring gaps within our squad.

Frankly our inability to find and sign a senior, experienced and reliable goalkeeper has now gone beyond laughable. Has any other club in League 1 (or anywhere for that matter!) had to sign five (yes FIVE!) goalkeepers in a single season? Of course the injury to Daniel Bachman was desperately unlucky, but the judgement on signing the other four can very much be called into question.

Our defence has frankly been a disorganised shambles throughout the entire campaign, you only need to look at the sheer number of sloppy goals we have conceded to see that. In midfield while we have a number of potential options, 2/3rds of the way through the season we still don’t know what our best combination is. It is also abundantly clear how much we miss a Jordan Brown/ Darren Pratley type player to do the gritty stuff, protect the defence, and lay the foundations on which we can base our attacking play.

Up front while we have discovered an absolute gem of goalscorer in Dom Ballard, however deprived of Connolly as a partner, he simply can’t do it all on his own. He needs service and someone to complement his play. The fact that Theo Archibald has for the most part stood out so much since his very welcome return from long term injury, suggests how little the other attacking players have contributed.

With just 15 games remaining, we are bang in trouble and need to find a way to start grinding out results and getting points on the board, and quickly. In that post-match interview Richie suggested we need 7 wins to be safe; can you honestly put your hand on your heart and say that you have seen enough from this squad to be confident that they can win nearly half of their remaining fixtures?

Next up is tomorrow’s trip to Northampton, a ground where we usually struggle to get anything, in the very definition of a relegation six-pointer. Reading between the lines of what the gaffer was saying on Tuesday night, I suspect we might see a change of approach and possibly formation. However we approach the game, if we get beaten again then the murmurings amongst the fanbase will only heighten further.

Up the O’s!