Surely I should have learnt this season’s key lesson by now. As soon as you think Orient have turned a corner by stringing a run of positive performances and results together, there is another disappointment lurking around the corner to take the wind out of our sails yet again.

Going into the match at Wigan last Thursday, we were on a run of 5 games unbeaten. Ok, perhaps we should have done better than a goalless draw at Exeter the previous Saturday, but it felt very much as if we were starting to build towards securing our League 1 safety. Another stalemate in Greater Manchester and a frankly gutting home defeat by Huddersfield has left O’s fans nervously studying the league table once again.

The performance at Wigan was very much the stereotypical game of two halves: we offered very little from a football perspective in the first period, not helped by a disastrous pitch (just another reason for yours truly to hate the Wigan Warriors rugby league side!), it has to be said. However two half time substitutions which saw Ollie O’Neill and Idris El Mizouni replace Charlie Wellens and Tyreeq Bakinson undoubtedly gave us a bit more forward impetus. It would perhaps be stretching the analysis too far to suggest we could have won the match, but our second half display merited a point.

On Easter Monday, despite taking the lead through an own goal after 20 minutes, we never seemed to get control of the game. Consequently it came as no real surprise when Huddersfield equalized just before half-time. The winning goal felt controversial as Tom James was made to go off the pitch while the Terriers were given the benefit of an uncontested drop ball. The fact that it came in the 16^th added minute, 2 minutes over the initial allocation, made it feel even worse. On both goals though it is definitely fair to say that we could have done a lot better with our defending. 

The solitary point we picked up from a possible 6 over the Easter period, combined with other results from some of the teams just below us in the table, mean that we remain just 4 points clear of the dropzone. With just 5 more games to go, to a degree our destiny is in our own hands. It is generally felt that we need at least a win and a draw, ideally two more wins, to guarantee our safety. It is hard to see us getting very much at all at already promoted and (very!) likely league title winners Lincoln tomorrow, unless of course they have been celebrating all week!

After that comes two home games in quick session against midtable Mansfield on Tuesday evening and then the seemingly already doomed Rotherham the following Saturday. Our final two fixtures of the season see us take on two teams that currently sit 2 points behind us in the table: away at Blackpool and at home to Burton. If we are not safe by that point then they could turn into very nervy afternoons. 

In other news this week the club released its: “2025/26 Q3 Update from the Leyton Orient Board” just ahead of the Huddersfield match. While there isn’t anything particularly unexpected or shocking in the report, some of the key points covered are:

• The importance of the January transfer window for both the immediate and long-term impact.
• The firing of Martin Ling and Alan McCormack and the departure of Omar Beckles, although rather unsurprisingly there was no real detail given on the reasons behind those decisions.
• The “eye-watering” financial losses across League 1: the average playing budget has increased by 50% in two years and has doubled since 2019, with wage growth outstripping revenue growth resulting in several League 1 clubs reporting losses which exceeded 100% of their annual revenue. That is not only unsustainable but quite frankly alarming.
• Orient’s own loss in 2024/25 was £4.5m with the forecast for this season expected to be a loss in excess of £5m.
• The launch of a survey about the club’s proposed new stadium. I took the time to complete the survey, which seemed to very much be about premium and hospitality seating and how much would be acceptable to pay. However, there wasn’t any real detail of potential views and facilities, and it felt like a market research exercise to inform premium pricing rather than a true gathering of supporters’ views on the new stadium. Mind you it might help if the club was able to tell us where the new ground is going to be!
• An increase in the price of season cards for 2026/27 of 6%, which I have to say feels both understandable and fair given how much money the club loses on an ongoing basis.

Personally, I think the big takeaway from the report is to highlight how important this key transitional phase in which the club finds itself is for its future. While results on the pitch have been largely underwhelming this season, the ambitious development work is continuing apace behind the scenes. However one thing remains crystal clear: that we simply have to stay in League 1, the alternative is almost unthinkable. To do that we need to re-discover the form we had before Easter and to get some more points on the board. Sincil Bank tomorrow lunchtime would be an excellent place to start. 

 Up the O’s!