How great was it to be back at the Valley yesterday? Even after so many years, the walk through the familiar streets of my childhood, the hubbub around the stadium, the smells, the noises and then the build up of the atmosphere inside the stadium are still a magical prelude to the game itself.
It was far from a complete performance, which is unsurprising given the early stage in the evolution of the team, with so many new players needing to find the rhythm, but we still had too much for Orient. They weren’t a bad side but they never really threatened our goal whilst we could and should have converted at least one or two of the good chances that fell to Alfie, TC and Camara.
The gaps in the team were quite apparent, with the need for at least one additional striker the most obvious of these. I have no doubt that there’ll be at least a couple of quality additions by early September.
Of the new boys:
Alfie May has a good turn of speed, amazing stamina and a great attitude. He was unlucky not to score very early on (smart save from their keeper). He was caught offside far too often and he needs to time his runs better (and/or those hitting the long passes for him need to time their passing better).
Although Karoy Anderson did well, Camara added a huge amount to the midfield when he came on. Pure class. He’ll play a big role for us this season.
Lloyd Jones was pretty decent. A solid defender for sure but his distribution needs work. To be fair so does that of Ness and Thomas.
Tayo Edun only made a brief cameo but did well.
Of the old boys, two in particular stood out for me - CBT and Dobbo. CBT was amazing for the first hour before visibly tiring. An outstanding performance which led to their defenders not only doubling up on him but trebling up. You don’t see that too often at any standard of football. Dobbo was just Dobbo - irrepressible, heart on the sleeve and more skilled than some give him credit for.
I think virtually every fan has come to greatly like and respect Dean Holden and I’m no different. It will be interesting to see how flexible he is in his tactics, especially against better sides.
We’ll have better days, and we’ll have worse. But we’ll still love it whatever. Charlton, once in your heart it never really goes away.
Corey Blackett-Taylor is our X factor player: A two footed player who can beat a defender with pace on the outside or cut inside. He will always be erratic and not blessed with the greatest stamina but he is explosive and can rip defenders apart.
I predicted a draw because we have many players not up to speed yet, so to win was a bonus and shows that we will scrap. Fraser will be important for this team and his link up with Alfie May.
The Squad will be our strength this season where it's normally our weakness as it's not usually strong enough.
Its a results business and we won.
Decent day at the office with so much more to come.
CBT has obviously been getting new coaching on crossing. He put more quality crosses in this match than the whole of last season. Those dinked in balls were crying out for a Leaburn or Stockley!!
Corey Blackett-Taylor is our X factor player: A two footed player who can beat a defender with pace on the outside or cut inside. He will always be erratic and not blessed with the greatest stamina but he is explosive and can rip defenders apart.
I predicted a draw because we have many players not up to speed yet, so to win was a bonus and shows that we will scrap. Fraser will be important for this team and his link up with Alfie May.
The Squad will be our strength this season where it's normally our weakness as it's not usually strong enough.
Its a results business and we won.
Decent day at the office with so much more to come.
Totally agree, CBT has the potential to be a real difference maker in this league. Hope we can get the best out of him.
Only Ipswich and Sheffield Wed lost fewer games than Orient across leagues 1 & 2 last season. They finished as champions winning two more games than anyone else and only let in 34 goals.
Whilst that form is irrelevant now, the gulf in standard between the divisions isn't as pronounced higher up in the leagues imo, so to beat them by any margin seems a good result to me.
Better teams may come and go, but it's not easy to know how newly promoted Clubs rate as opponents in establishing a benchmark. No team is going to rock up at the Valley and make it easy for us.
Decided to wait a bit before writing a match report, but reading the thread. I don’t think there’s much to add that hasn’t been covered already.
One plus for me is that I didn’t think Dobson finished last season very well, so it was great to see him back on top Dobbo form. Thomas has many doubters, but it looks like he’s beginning to win some of them over. He’ll be tested more seriously next week though.
Although Ness’s long balls over the top mainly didn’t come off, he did look calm on the ball, and it’s worth bearing in mind the form he showed before his injury. It probably didn’t help that the pitch was so wet, meaning the ball tended to skid away from the runners.
I love watching a new player making his debut, so there was great value in watching May, Camara and Edun. All three did very well I thought. Loved May’s energy. He must be a nightmare to defend against. Camara could be a game changer and thought there was a bit of the Aribo about him. And there was something classy about Edun’s cameo that makes me think we’ll see much more of him as the season progresses.
Great to see ‘the Brothers’ (as Asiimwe and Anderson call each other) stepping up so well.
Mildly encouraging. Watching on stream so may have missed some of the subtleties. Most of the new guys looked a step up on what they have replaced. May needs a partner and will get one when Miles is fit. Youngsters didn’t disgrace themselves in the slightest. Still need a few in and at least a couple out. Nice to be concentrating on the footy rather than the sideshow for a change. Orient will be bottom half on the basis of that performance so I’m reserving judgement on us until we get a bit further in and get our best 11 on the pitch for a few games. But, as I say, mildly encouraging.
Happy with the result and performance, especially knowing we have Leaburn and Aneke to come back and there’s a distinct possibility of at least one more player joining the club.
I think Derby will be up there or thereabouts but I don't see them as the out and out favourites others do. I thought that before the Wigan game but the first game of the season doesn't mean much anyway in terms of a guide. It is very true that you can't really see the patterns until after five or six games.
I thought Jones looked a little shakey, and defo seemed to be puffing at around the 70min mark. Hopefully he has more to show as the games start coming. Overall really happy though! More signings to come, and I’m sure we will get some good bodies through the door.
Decent way to start the season, 3 points, clean sheet and no real pressure coming from the opposition.
The team probably needs 2 or 3 more and the squad probably the same number, but with a a few who will be shipped out we appear to have a decent base to work form, and that is a vast improvement of where we were at the same stage of the season in the last 2.
Decided to wait a bit before writing a match report, but reading the thread. I don’t think there’s much to add that hasn’t been covered already.
One plus for me is that I didn’t think Dobson finished last season very well, so it was great to see him back on top Dobbo form. Thomas has many doubters, but it looks like he’s beginning to win some of them over. He’ll be tested more seriously next week though.
Although Ness’s long balls over the top mainly didn’t come off, he did look calm on the ball, and it’s worth bearing in mind the form he showed before his injury. It probably didn’t help that the pitch was so wet, meaning the ball tended to skid away from the runners.
I love watching a new player making his debut, so there was great value in watching May, Camara and Edun. All three did very well I thought. Loved May’s energy. He must be a nightmare to defend against. Camara could be a game changer and thought there was a bit of the Aribo about him. And there was something classy about Edun’s cameo that makes me think we’ll see much more of him as the season progresses.
Great to see ‘the Brothers’ (as Asiimwe and Anderson call each other) stepping up so well.
All in all a 7/10 performance for me.
See what you did there - A collection of doubting Thomases.
Can anyone clarify why we are showing 8th in the league tables, when Stevenage and Peterborough both also won 1-0.
Does nobody know their alphabetic order in the media?
Charlton Athletic. The real 6th place.
Stupid I know, but Stevenage and Peterborough were away from home, so it might be done on Away Goals - Its the only reason I can think of, as Charlton / Stevenage ended up with three bookings, and Posh got four.
For those whose whelmometer is close to neutral, may I suggest we would have won more convincingly and more swashbucklingly if we had been kicking the right blimmin way!
That was down to Darren Pratley. He's no mug and knows we'd want to kick towards the Covered End 2nd half. He won the toss & turned us around.
Smart bloke.
Gamesmanship in the most negative form is all he has in his locker.Good riddance. PS it didn't work
Can’t agree with that. It’s not gamesmanship. Gamesmanship is Jason Pearce going down in our box with 5 minutes to go when we are 1-0 up at Fleetwood or somewhere and under the cosh, and getting a miracle fix ffrom the physio. And we all love Jase, right?
Pratley won the toss. There was no issue with sun, or AFAIK wind. So how else do you use it? He knows the Valley because he’s played here - and won- when it was rocking. It was literally his job to take a decision to piss us all off.
i would not want him in our team now, but he’s what, 39. He played a big role in getting us out of this division, and he captained Orient to a title. Look at him yesterday. Fit as a fiddle. That’s what I call a true pro. And we need some of our players to be a bit more Darren Pratley this season, starting with Fraser.
For those whose whelmometer is close to neutral, may I suggest we would have won more convincingly and more swashbucklingly if we had been kicking the right blimmin way!
That was down to Darren Pratley. He's no mug and knows we'd want to kick towards the Covered End 2nd half. He won the toss & turned us around.
Smart bloke.
Gamesmanship in the most negative form is all he has in his locker.Good riddance. PS it didn't work
Can’t agree with that. It’s not gamesmanship. Gamesmanship is Jason Pearce going down in our box with 5 minutes to go when we are 1-0 up at Fleetwood or somewhere and under the cosh, and getting a miracle fix ffrom the physio. And we all love Jase, right?
Pratley won the toss. There was no issue with sun, or AFAIK wind. So how else do you use it? He knows the Valley because he’s played here - and won- when it was rocking. It was literally his job to take a decision to piss us all off.
i would not want him in our team now, but he’s what, 39. He played a big role in getting us out of this division, and he captained Orient to a title. Look at him yesterday. Fit as a fiddle. That’s what I call a true pro. And we need some of our players to be a bit more Darren Pratley this season, starting with Fraser.
He hardly had much of an impact on the game beyond his man-marking job though, and he wasn't particularly mobile. Orient's number 15 was absolutely everywhere, winning tackles AND creating play. He was their standout imo. Fraser's standard is that, not Pratley's.
Meanwhile, Pratley's opposite number ran everything for us and scored our winner.
For those whose whelmometer is close to neutral, may I suggest we would have won more convincingly and more swashbucklingly if we had been kicking the right blimmin way!
That was down to Darren Pratley. He's no mug and knows we'd want to kick towards the Covered End 2nd half. He won the toss & turned us around.
Smart bloke.
Gamesmanship in the most negative form is all he has in his locker.Good riddance. PS it didn't work
Can’t agree with that. It’s not gamesmanship. Gamesmanship is Jason Pearce going down in our box with 5 minutes to go when we are 1-0 up at Fleetwood or somewhere and under the cosh, and getting a miracle fix ffrom the physio. And we all love Jase, right?
Pratley won the toss. There was no issue with sun, or AFAIK wind. So how else do you use it? He knows the Valley because he’s played here - and won- when it was rocking. It was literally his job to take a decision to piss us all off.
i would not want him in our team now, but he’s what, 39. He played a big role in getting us out of this division, and he captained Orient to a title. Look at him yesterday. Fit as a fiddle. That’s what I call a true pro. And we need some of our players to be a bit more Darren Pratley this season, starting with Fraser.
Very pleased with that. May, Camara, Edun all look like real quality signings on first glance.
Once we have Leaburn (or someone else) to play up front with May we will be really dangerous.
CBT really excellent today, hopefully he can keep those kinds of performances up more consistently this year. Delivery has definitely improved.
Fantastic performance from Dobbo, can’t ask for much more than that really.
Some real quality on display from the youngsters, particularly from Anderson in the first half who i thought was impressive and looks strong and confident for his age. Some moments of hesitation/indecision from him, Asiimwe, Campbell and Ness though, which is to be expected, but also why we don’t want to be relying on playing so many kids throughout the season. New bodies coming in, and the new signings getting match fit will help with that but they’ve definitely shown they will be good competition/cover.
Defence still looks a bit shakey at times. Impressed by Thomas performance but Jones and Ness looked unsure at times. Against teams that actually come to attack we might be in a bit more trouble than we were today.
Thought ref was crap, a real reminder of how rubbish they are at this level.
Overall so much to be positive about, good atmosphere, and looking forward to the next one!
Old master Pratley closed done Fraser very effectively (again) leaving our centre backs to try and make 50 yards passes to May.
When we did manage to build the play we looked dangerous especially CBT who got the assist.
Campbell isn't a partner for Alfie He was very good and if he was playing off Leaburn or Nombe all well and good but that's May's job.
Thomas, who it seems will inherit the Albie Morgan/Sean Clare scapegoat costume was good, just as he was good last season but he is still damned with faint praise.
Edun was a revelation. Fast, tricky, strong in the tackle, skillful. Picking between him and CBT will be difficult. Maybe horses for courses depending on the opposition.
Thought Anderson faded slightly and was caught out of position a few times but still an impressive full debut at only 18.
Camara was the player I remember from his Plymouth days, love those leggy runs but boy what a miss.
Dobson was very aggressive in the tackle and was my man of match even without the goal.
We'll play better and we'll play better sides when we'll need to.
We did look stronger against corners and free kicks.
And despite what Golfie has said all summer about not needing another striker I think we do, possibly two, along with a right back assuming Egbo is out of favour along with DJ.
Three points, clean sheet, good crowd.
Tony Keohane still hasn't got all the turnstiles open but a guy with a hand held scanner meant we could walk straight into our new East Stand seats.
People must have very warped memories if they think that was on par with last seasons performances. When did we look so comfortable last season for a start?!
Plenty of improvement to come, but Orient won’t get rolled over every week, they’re a well drilled side.
Pick up early season points whilst players get used to the system and back to full fitness and I’m well happy.
Comments
PWR
How great was it to be back at the Valley yesterday? Even after so many years, the walk through the familiar streets of my childhood, the hubbub around the stadium, the smells, the noises and then the build up of the atmosphere inside the stadium are still a magical prelude to the game itself.
It was far from a complete performance, which is unsurprising given the early stage in the evolution of the team, with so many new players needing to find the rhythm, but we still had too much for Orient. They weren’t a bad side but they never really threatened our goal whilst we could and should have converted at least one or two of the good chances that fell to Alfie, TC and Camara.
The gaps in the team were quite apparent, with the need for at least one additional striker the most obvious of these. I have no doubt that there’ll be at least a couple of quality additions by early September.
Of the new boys:
Of the old boys, two in particular stood out for me - CBT and Dobbo. CBT was amazing for the first hour before visibly tiring. An outstanding performance which led to their defenders not only doubling up on him but trebling up. You don’t see that too often at any standard of football. Dobbo was just Dobbo - irrepressible, heart on the sleeve and more skilled than some give him credit for.
I think virtually every fan has come to greatly like and respect Dean Holden and I’m no different. It will be interesting to see how flexible he is in his tactics, especially against better sides.
We’ll have better days, and we’ll have worse. But we’ll still love it whatever. Charlton, once in your heart it never really goes away.
Whilst that form is irrelevant now, the gulf in standard between the divisions isn't as pronounced higher up in the leagues imo, so to beat them by any margin seems a good result to me.
Better teams may come and go, but it's not easy to know how newly promoted Clubs rate as opponents in establishing a benchmark. No team is going to rock up at the Valley and make it easy for us.
Happy for the three points. Onto the next.
Thomas has many doubters, but it looks like he’s beginning to win some of them over. He’ll be tested more seriously next week though.
All in all a 7/10 performance for me.
Edit: I suspect you missed this by looking at the table - Wigan are bottom due to their points deduction, so you probably missed them!
Does nobody know their alphabetic order in the media?
The team probably needs 2 or 3 more and the squad probably the same number, but with a a few who will be shipped out we appear to have a decent base to work form, and that is a vast improvement of where we were at the same stage of the season in the last 2.
i would not want him in our team now, but he’s what, 39. He played a big role in getting us out of this division, and he captained Orient to a title. Look at him yesterday. Fit as a fiddle. That’s what I call a true pro. And we need some of our players to be a bit more Darren Pratley this season, starting with Fraser.
Meanwhile, Pratley's opposite number ran everything for us and scored our winner.
Once we have Leaburn (or someone else) to play up front with May we will be really dangerous.
Fantastic performance from Dobbo, can’t ask for much more than that really.
Some real quality on display from the youngsters, particularly from Anderson in the first half who i thought was impressive and looks strong and confident for his age. Some moments of hesitation/indecision from him, Asiimwe, Campbell and Ness though, which is to be expected, but also why we don’t want to be relying on playing so many kids throughout the season. New bodies coming in, and the new signings getting match fit will help with that but they’ve definitely shown they will be good competition/cover.
Defence still looks a bit shakey at times. Impressed by Thomas performance but Jones and Ness looked unsure at times. Against teams that actually come to attack we might be in a bit more trouble than we were today.
Thought ref was crap, a real reminder of how rubbish they are at this level.
Overall so much to be positive about, good atmosphere, and looking forward to the next one!
Orient frustrated us by packing the midfield.
Old master Pratley closed done Fraser very effectively (again) leaving our centre backs to try and make 50 yards passes to May.
When we did manage to build the play we looked dangerous especially CBT who got the assist.
Campbell isn't a partner for Alfie He was very good and if he was playing off Leaburn or Nombe all well and good but that's May's job.
Thomas, who it seems will inherit the Albie Morgan/Sean Clare scapegoat costume was good, just as he was good last season but he is still damned with faint praise.
Edun was a revelation. Fast, tricky, strong in the tackle, skillful. Picking between him and CBT will be difficult. Maybe horses for courses depending on the opposition.
Thought Anderson faded slightly and was caught out of position a few times but still an impressive full debut at only 18.
Camara was the player I remember from his Plymouth days, love those leggy runs but boy what a miss.
Dobson was very aggressive in the tackle and was my man of match even without the goal.
We'll play better and we'll play better sides when we'll need to.
We did look stronger against corners and free kicks.
And despite what Golfie has said all summer about not needing another striker I think we do, possibly two, along with a right back assuming Egbo is out of favour along with DJ.
Three points, clean sheet, good crowd.
Tony Keohane still hasn't got all the turnstiles open but a guy with a hand held scanner meant we could walk straight into our new East Stand seats.
Plenty of improvement to come, but Orient won’t get rolled over every week, they’re a well drilled side.
If its not over the tanoy yet, the announcer probably tried to improvise