Big Match Review - Leyton Orient 2 Peterborough 1

Leyton Orient 2-1 Peterborough United

Friday April 22, Brisbane Road, (5,476)

A Ryan Jarvis goal deep into injury time secured Leyton Orient a vital win to boost their top six hopes and deal a body blow to Peterborough's hopes of automatic promotion.

It took until midway through the second half for the deadlock to be broken, with Posh defender Gabriel Zakuani - playing against his former club - sliding in to put a Stephen Dawson cross into his own net.

However, United hit back just eight minutes later with Nathaniel Mendez-Lang jumping highest to head a Grant McCann in.

It was the Londoners who claimed maximum spoils though, with Ryan Jarvis nodding home a deep cross from Jason Crowe to keep the O's play off dreams alive.

Orient now sit just three points off a place in the play offs - where they could still end up facing a Posh side for whom finishing in the top two is now out of reach.

Big Match Preview - Leyton Orient vs. Peterborough

Leyton Orient vs. Peterborough United

Friday April 22, 15:00, Brisbane Road

Two sides looking to make sure they enjoy a Good Friday clash in East London tomorrow afternoon as promotion hopefuls Peterborough visit a Leyton Orient side still with an eye on the play offs.

With games running out, and both sides playing catch-up in their respective races, they know that three points tomorrow are paramount if they are to keep their dreams alive.

For the home side, currently sitting in 8th place, they still harbour hopes of overturning a five point deficit to sneak into the final play off berth currently occupied by Bournemouth.

Orient were struggling towards the wrong end of the table in the Autumn, but inspired by a great run in the FA Cup went on a run of one defeat in 19 league matches.

It propelled Russell Slade's men to the very fringes of the play offs, but since the O's have won just one of their last eight to lose ground on their rivals at the very worst moment.

However, Slade - who has twice taken sides into the play offs during his managerial career - will know that, with his team's last two fixtures against struggling sides, that a win against Peterborough will keep his team in with a chance.

The O's have generally been solid at Brisbane Road this term, suffering just four defeats from 21 matches, although they have lost two of their last four to Southampton and a crushing 5-1 loss to Yeovil.

Key performers for Orient this season are veteran striker Scott McGleish with 17 goals in all competitions, and fellow forward Alex Revell has 14 to his name too.

Leyton Orient boss Russell Slade has not given up hopes of the top six

Opponents Peterborough are almost guaranteed a place in at least the play offs, but the Cambridgeshire outfit still retain hopes of sneaking up automatically.

It would echo their achievement of two years ago, when Darren Ferguson guided Posh to successive promotions into the Championship - where they endured a nightmare campaign.

Now Ferguson - after a calamitous 12 months at Preston North End - is back in charge and is once more competing for promotion with the London Road outfit.

He assumed control after United appeared to be losing direction under Gary Johnson with the team, while potent going forwards, leaking goals at an alarming rate. Just three defeats in 18 have been suffered since Ferguson's return though.

Posh even went on a sequence of four consecutive clean sheets. However, their defensive frailties - 69 goals have been leaked - are never far away though, and were typified by them throwing a 3-1 lead against Bournemouth recently.

With League One's top scorer in 25-goal man Craig Mackail Smith in their ranks though, Ferguson's free scoring team have an attacking arsenal that can often be enough to overpower their divisional opponents.

This is a big game for both teams. Arguably more so for Posh though, who know they can't afford to drop any more points if they are to make the top two and gain automatic promotion.

I'm going to back Peterborough to continue the chase and end Orient's faint top six chances. Their attacking power should be too much for an Orient side whose best form this season is behind them.

Nobes' Prediction: Leyton Orient 1 Peterborough United 3

Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive

Nobes considers the scenario facing clubs like League One strugglers Leyton Orient - is simply surviving in a higher division always preferable to playing at a lower level?

All smiles - but Orient boss Russell Slade's ambitions are limited

"Nothing else mattered - only the results mattered," declared Russell Slade after guiding Leyton Orient to League One safety last May.

You get the feeling, should he keep the struggling O's up again this term, he could read from the same script again next spring.

Orient, now in their fifth successive year in the third tier, are a club for whom a season finishing just above the dotted line cannot be qualified as anything other than a success.

It was certainly the case last season when the East London outfit turned to Slade to keep them up with just half a dozen games to go.

Three wins in his first five matches, including defeating Champions Norwich, ensured it was mission accomplished for the 50-year-old who had performed a similar great escape at Brighton 12 months previously.

At the same time Slade was performing his rescue mission on the South Coast, his predecessor at Brisbane Road, Geraint Williams, had successfully overseen Orient's own relegation battle.

Saturday's victory at Tranmere saw them move up to 16th in this term's table but, in a congested bottom half, they're still just a couple of points above the relegation zone. Another fight against the drop has ensued in the Capital City.

At this level, it's just the way things are for Orient. In their first season back in League One, they ended up 21st - just four points clear of relegated Chesterfield - and two 14th place finishes represent their zenith.

As with so many sides in the Premier League who begin the campaign with nothing but survival on their mind, the same now applies to clubs like Leyton Orient and others across the Football League.

It sounds unambitious but, with rules like the transfer window seeming to favour the sides with bigger budgets who can carry the size of squad able to deal with injuries and suspensions, it's really just reality hitting home.

The be-all and end-all is to ensure you collect enough points to retain your place in a higher division. Relegation, presumably, heralding something between the world stopping rotating and full-scale Armageddon.

Here's a thought though - would relegation really be that bad for Leyton Orient and other clubs in a similar situation?

Yes, you did read that correctly. Are those end of season pitch invasions - a cocktail of joy and sheer relief at beating the drop - actually misplaced? Or, indeed, perhaps they should be performed when your side actually does go down?

It goes against all popular thought to suggest that playing at a lower level is actually desirable. You should always be striving to perform at the highest echelon and take on the best that you can.

In Orient's case, maintaining their League One status is paramount. However, it strikes me as somewhat depressing when the only thing you have to look forward to during nine months of toil and anguish is the prospect of doing it all over again.

Why put yourself through that every year? Why, too, is it such a cause for celebration? After all, where's the fun in simply making up the numbers?

The fun? Getting to go to grounds like Sheffield Wednesday and Southampton. Going into matches as the underdog - looking to cause a surprise. Going into a season where expectations are so low almost everything is a bonus.

Does staying up in League One really give Orient that much celebrate about?

Is it just me though, or does that sound like the sort of rhetoric usually associated with Cup football? Where the experience - allied to the financial benefit - almost takes on greater importance than the result itself.

Instead, do we get so worked up over the prestige - of playing as high up as we can - that we allow it to blind ourselves in whether we're really enjoying supporting our team?

Losing games regularly? No matter, we're losing in League One. No prospect of achieving anything other than survival? Doesn't matter as long as we're a League One club. Playing dull football just to ensure you beat the drop? If we do, we'll be in League One.

It's the kind of positive spinning that would have ensured a high-up job in the last Labour Government. In reality though, divisional status only serves to mask a pretty miserable sounding existence.

Yet it's the situation Orient and many others find themselves in. Survival will only ever be the target for Scunthorpe in the Championship, ditto for the likes of Barnet and Accrington in League Two.

Contrast that, though, with life in a lower division. What if Slade and his charges fail to beat the drop this time around? Would life back in the basement division really be so bad for Orient?

Some would argue that they would be financially worse off. However, this season's average attendance of just over 4,200 is lower than the usual gates the O's were getting in 2005/6 when they won promotion.

The truth is, if Orient were winning more matches in a lower division then they would get bigger gates. As phoenix club Chester FC have discovered - fans will pay to watch winning football whatever level you are at.

Although there may be a reduction in away fans as smaller clubs make the trip to the East End, better form on the pitch would counterbalance this.

Surely too, life would be more exciting in a division where fans know their team could be competitive? Although challenging for promotion and the top seven can be equally stressful for supporters, it's the kind of anxiety you want.

They would go into a season full of hope and daring to dream. They could also expect to enjoy that winning feeling more often than they currently do.

With the right manager, they may even see a more enterprising style of play - as they go into matches looking to win rather than just stifling and stopping their opposition from playing.

They would also revert from being a small fish in a big pond - as the O's are in the third tier - to being a club of greater stature in their division.

That can be a bonus when trying to attract players, who could join a team they expect to be challenging at the right end as opposed to battling relegation.

Suddenly, life in a lower division doesn't sound so bad. The prospect of losing a relegation battle - as painful in the short term as it may be - does not have to be the beginning of a desperate time for a club.

Which if, after the dust has settled on another campaign, your club has been relegated may just be worth remembering. Results do matter, the division not so much.

Last Roll of the Dice

After struggling Leyton Orient replace boss Geraint Williams with Russell Slade, Nobes examines changing managers late on in the season.

Orient had been in free fall under Geraint Williams in recent weeks

One win in their last 11 matches, and failing to score in five of their last seven outings. They're the worrying statistics which have accompanied Leyton Orient's recent slide down the League One table.

It's a run which culminated in Saturday's 3-1 defeat to fellow strugglers Hartlepool - a result which forced O's chairman Barry Hearn into the drastic action of sacking manager Geraint Williams.

The Welshman had only been in charge at Brisbane Road for 14 months - when he was hired to save the Londoners from relegation to the basement division. It was a mission he successfully accomplished.

Now, the boot is on the other foot. Orient are once more in relegation peril in League One, and it's Williams who has been removed in the hope a new saviour is just around the corner.

After last season's success deploying the same tactic, perhaps it's no surprise that Hearn has been quick to act when a return to the division they were promoted from in 2006 began to become a real possibility.

It's no surprise either that the man they've turned to is Russell Slade. The experienced former Yeovil boss left his position at Brighton & Hove Albion earlier in the season.

However, they looked dead and buried in the same division last season when Slade was appointed. Four points adrift of safety with 13 games remaining - Albion were heading into League Two.

After an initially slow start though, 16 points from their last seven games secured survival on the last day of the season.

Slade joins the O's with the club only above the bottom four on goal difference. Crucial six pointers against relegation rivals Tranmere and Oldham have recently been lost too.

Fresh impetus, a new voice on the training ground, and someone to inject confidence and belief in a dispirited squad of players is what's called for. All in the hope that a few positive results - enough to avoid relegation - can be strung together.

It is the phenomenon referred to as New Manager Syndrome, or NMS. The belief that a team's fortunes can be instantly, if only temporarily, improved under the guidance of a new manager.

There are good examples of its effect this season - Barnsley's sudden improvement under Mark Robins and Alan Irvine's immediate transformation of Sheffield Wednesday to name just two.

However, after the new man's 'honeymoon period' - as the series of positive results are sometimes referred to - more regular, inconsistent, form returns to the team.

It is that 'honeymoon period' which Orient are now banking on their new man experiencing to deliver them a fifth consecutive season in English football's third tier.

It would follow too that, a team with just a few games of the season remaining, would be the perfect side to benefit from such a short-lived run of positive results.

It may appear to be a risky strategy, but Slade's record, as well as other past evidence, actually supports the theory. A change of manager, however late, can have the desired effect of helping a struggling side avoid the drop.

Take Martin Allen, who had an even tougher job than Slade's at Brighton when he took over at Brentford in 2004. The Londoners had just nine games of the season left and found themselves four points off safety.

'Mad Dog' as Allen is affectionately known, engineered a stunning turn-around in form however, winning five and losing just one of their remaining matches to avoid relegation to League Two.

Ex-Brighton boss Slade will be hoping to pull off another great escape with Orient

It seems that the shorter the time a manager has, the more impressive the form - and the escape from relegation.

When Ian Atkins assumed the managerial reins at Torquay, the Devon side were bottom of the entire Football League and had just half a dozen games to save themselves.

That task looked even harder after defeat in his first match, but four wins and a draw from their remaining five games completed a remarkable act of escapology from the Gulls.

Things looked bleak for Crystal Palace in 2001 too. The Eagles were three points adrift in the drop zone of the Championship with just two games left when they turned to club stalwart Steve Kember.

Remarkably, Kember inspired Palace to win both matches, staying up by just a single point on a dramatic final day. It remains one of the most powerful and effective uses of NMS in the game.

It almost worked, too, for Exeter City in their battle against the drop into the Conference in 2002. The Grecians, bottom of the table, had played more game than all their rivals and were staring relegation in the face.

They turned to the ex-Preston manager Gary Peters to save them but, despite gaining 20 points from their last 13 matches, City went down by a single point. Had he been in place just a couple of games more, they probably would have stayed up.

Two years later, and Macclesfield Town were more fortunate in their late change of managers. The experienced Brian Horton was drafted in to work with Silkmen legend John Askey as the Cheshire outfit struggled to stay up.

Horton's impact was immediate, leading Town to 13 points from a possible 21 to preserve their Football League status.

The fortunes of another experienced manager, Joe Royle, were less impressive when he attempted a similar late rally last season.

Play-off chasing Oldham turned to their legendary former boss to help resurrect their flagging top six challenge after the departure of John Sheridan.

At that stage, Latics were just a point off the play-offs, but Royle failed to win any of his first eight games, and a final day victory left them 11 points off 6th. It had been a failed experiment.

It suggests that late changes of manager are more effective when a team find themselves towards the bottom of the table rather than the top.

Either way though, it represents a gamble as to whether a last-gasp switch in managers works or not. Orient will be hoping their last throw of the dice is, once more, a winning one.