Following on from the somewhat mysterious departure of club captain Omar Beckles, then the unexpected sacking of first team coach Alan McCormack, the news broke on Friday evening that Director of Football Martin Ling was leaving his role with the club. The fact that all three departures came very much out of the blue, has led to a large proportion of the fanbase wondering just what the hell is going on at Leyton Orient?

In what was presumably a hastily arranged video released by the club in the immediate aftermath of the news of Ling’s departure becoming public, Chairman Nigel Travis as well as paying tribute to and thanking Ling for his contribution to the club, suggested that: “every organisation evolves, and that’s where we are right now.” In further trying to explain the rationale, Nigel made it clear that this wasn’t majority shareholder David Gandler’s decision, it was very much the board’s, and he was the one that put forward the proposal. (Et Tu Nigel?).

I get that ever since coming back to the club Ling has often been an easy target for some of the fanbase to vent their frustrations, especially with some of the recruitment decisions (Carl Fletcher anyone?), but for me it is the timing of his departure that is the most confusing. We can all acknowledge that our transfer business going into this season, Dom Ballard, Aaron Connolly and Idris El Mizouni aside, left a lot to be desired. We then saw how the club felt that they had to address the squad issues caused by the ineffective summer transfer activity by bringing in another 9 new players in January, but what is the sense of getting rid of Ling in early March? The next transfer window won’t open until June and basically our squad, for better or worse(!), is set for what remains of this pretty disastrous campaign.

Equally, I think it would be completely naïve of anyone to suggest that Ling and Ling alone was the sole person responsible for our confused transfer business. Surely Head of Recruitment Dan McLoone and Richie Wellens himself are at the very least involved, if not a key part of our recruitment processes? Does Richie really strike you as the sort of manager who would accept having players that he doesn’t fancy forced upon him? No, me neither!

On the other side of the situation, perhaps we have to take the Chairman at face value and recognise that with ambitious plans for a new stadium underpinning the aspiration of becoming a sustainable Championship club, then this decision has been made with a view to the future.

If (and that is in no way guaranteed just yet) we manage to stay in the third tier, then presumably the forward strategy will be all about building on the foundations that we think we have begun to lay in terms of: having more players on permanent contracts, less churn within the squad, and the need to keep strengthening the squad each season. In that case, then maybe a different perspective and a fresher, more modern approach to signing players and contract management is needed. If it all goes wrong though and we end up in League 2 next season, then we might just miss the guy that threw a squad together in a desperately short time ahead of our first season in the National League.

Returning to matters on the pitch, I didn’t actually go to Bradford: the strangely expensive train tickets, already being committed to going to Stevenage a couple of days later, and a general frustration with the way we are playing, convinced me to give it a miss. From what I can gather though it wasn’t exactly a massive source of encouragement that we were starting to put things right on the field.  

However, the performance in the victory at Stevenage on Tuesday night showed that the players at least seem to have some fight in them. Admittedly it was an uncharacteristically timid performance from the hosts, but the way that we fought back from being a goal down midway through the first half, to being 2-1 ahead 10 minutes into the second, and then hung on in the face of mounting Boro pressure, showed the spirt and commitment that has been lacking on too many occasions this season.

That is now 2 secured of the 7 wins that Richie Wellens suggested we needed to ensure our safety, but with 11 matches left to play we shouldn’t be taking anything for granted. On too many occasions this season it has looked like we have turned a corner form-wise, only for us to be brought crashing back down to earth by abject performances and disappointing results in subsequent matches.

While it would be overexaggeration to suggest that tomorrow’s home match against Peterborough and Tuesday night’s trip to Plough Lane are pivotal, the results of those matches might just influence how the rest of this season will pan out. Some more points on the board and hopefully we can put some daylight between ourselves and the dropzone, but two disappointing results and we will be back to square one yet again.

Up the O’s!