Orient v Wycombe

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

First live game of the season for me, looking forward to seeing the players in action. Only so much you can judge by video.

Saw Wycombe at Barnet, they will be our biggest test of the season so far. I expect them to be tough to beat, really like what I've seen of Ingram, Jacobson and Pierre, Bean always offers good protection infront of the defence. I notice Hayes and Wood didn't feature v Plymouth, injured?

I reckon we'll line up:

McCallum - Simpson
Cox
Moore - Pritchard
Payne
Shaw - Essam - Baudry - Clohessy
Cisak​

We'll dominate possession but create few chances, Wycombe will hit us on the break through Banton.

1-0 Wycombe. People will press the panic button and I will find it amusing.

 

[thewwfc]

Hayes was injured, don't think it's a biggie though.

Don't know what's happening with Wood, but considering that he's been a key player for us since he's joined, he seems off form of late.

Like you, I have only seen us play at Barnet this season so I have no more idea of what to expect than you do but I would expect this to be a hoofy, niggly affair with a hugely generous dash of gamesmanship. I fancy us to get a point but no more.

 

[The Terminator]

Hayes will play and probably score.

Have I ever mentioned I went to school with him and he broke my arm taking a penalty against me when I was 11? No, didn't think so.

We'll lose 2-0 and all the big shots will come out saying we've had an awful start.

 

[E10rifle]

Can see us losing this one about 5-0 as Hendon decides he didn't play enough central midfielders last week and brings Montel Agyemang and Freddie Moncur in to play alongside Payne, James, Pritchard and Moore. Both fullbacks to be dropped so we can concede the entirety of each flank. Wycombe will score all their gaols in the first 10 minutes, and then spend the next 80 feigning injury whilst Dean Cox plays Jenga with Kevin Nugent.

 

[mowgli]

Hayes was injured, don't think it's a biggie though.

Don't know what's happening with Wood, but considering that he's been a key player for us since he's joined, he seems off form of late.

Like you, I have only seen us play at Barnet this season so I have no more idea of what to expect than you do but I would expect this to be a hoofy, niggly affair with a hugely generous dash of gamesmanship. I fancy us to get a point but no more.

Seems Wood has been carrying an injury muxst be why he's been poor so far this season. I'd be happy with a point away at the leaders to be honest but it just depends on our injuries situation, got this down as 2-2.

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

I find it interesting how James is being perceived this season. Taken some flack against Cambridge for his poor passing, yet was statistically our third best passer in terms of passes completed and streets ahead of anyone in long passes completed. His attempted through balls resulted in a lot of failures, however only Baudry completed more.

 

[mowgli]

Sold out our allocation of 310 tickets and have been given another 150 although you can still pay at the gate.

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

Allocation of 310?!

 

[mowgli]

Allocation of 310?!

That's what it said on our website, thought it would be more than that as it's not that far away. I also saw on twitter that Channel 5 want Wycombe fans on their Football League Tonight show and are putting on a minibus for fans wanting to take part.

 

[E10rifle]

Allocation of 310?!

Just how many we sent for advance sales, I guess. Wycombe don't travel particularly well, but this way we get to rinse the extra pay on the gate punters for £2 each.

 

[mowgli]

Looks like Paul Hayes will be missing again with an achilles injury Not worried about Sam Wood to be fair as he hasn't hit the heights of last season and we have cover but we will miss Hayes up front.

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

Good news for us. Presuming Wycombe will line up:

Ugwu - Thompson
Banton - McGinn - Bean - Harriman
Jacobson - Pierre - Rowe - Jombati
Ingram​

?

 

[mowgli]

Good news for us. Presuming Wycombe will line up:

Ugwu - Thompson
Banton - McGinn - Bean - Harriman
Jacobson - Pierre - Rowe - Jombati
Ingram​

?

Most of that is likely unless Ainsworth plays 4-3-3 with Holloway up front with Ugwu and Thompson with Banton on the bench as he hasn't started too well after joining from Plymouth even though he scored against them last saturday.

 

[The Terminator]

Looks like Paul Hayes will be missing again with an achilles injury Not worried about Sam Wood to be fair as he hasn't hit the heights of last season and we have cover but we will miss Hayes up front.

Not sure if thats good or bad news, I always enjoy giving him a bit of stick But he usually does score against us!!!

 

[The Terminator]

We have to lose at home at some point, we also HAVE to concede a goal as well at home.

I reckon Cox will come in for Lloyd James and Jack Payne will keep his place, other than that we will be unchanged.

We will lose.

 

[The Terminator]

A draw overall was about right, a very tight game with few chances, although I thought we scored against the run of play in the second half - But after that I thought Simpson and Turgott had chances to win it for us.

Wycombe were the best drilled side I'd seen this season and had the right balance, they lacked a cutting edge up front though but we all know Hayes will provide that when he returns from injury. The gamesmenship game in at 1-0 but stopped at 1-1.

Clohessy was lucky not to be sent off for us - Another ref would've given him a 2nd yellow card. Wycombe should've had a penalty I thought towards the end as well, a very clumsy challenge from Ollie Palmer, the only reason I can think the ref didn't give was because the Wycombe player went down very easily, but we was lucky regardless.

Time for one or two changes for us IMO, time to give Ollie Palmer a chance instead of McCallum who was poor for us today, and maybe time to give 4-4-2 more of a go with Blair Turgott giving us more width.

 

[thewwfc]

Couldn't go through family reasons but I thought that was a decent result.

We need to get some wins on the board if our ambition is to keep up with the promotion pack (I don't have a problem if it isn't) but in the grand scheme of things, not bad.

 

[BelizeHatter]

Couldn't go through family reasons but I thought that was a decent result.

We need to get some wins on the board if our ambition is to keep up with the promotion pack ..........

Shit. You're a point and a goal behind an automatic spot. We are totally screwed based on your thinking!!!

 

[thewwfc]

Sorry, wasn't supposed to sound precious or alarmist, I'm well aware of how inconsistent teams are at this level and that even Newport could go on a blinding surge post January and nab a promotion spot.

 

[E10rifle]

Another sticky game for us. We didn't compete well enough physically, and probably deserved to lose. Pleased that we managed to come away from the game with a point, but performances are going to have to improve dramatically if we're serious about maintaining a top three spot. We're going to keep munching the division's dross, but being technically superior isn't enough against the better-drilled sides.

Wycombe were, of course, the cheatingest, divingest, feigning injuryest, timewasteyingest side the world has ever seen once they went 1-0 up. All of which miraculously stopped when we equalised (apart from Bloomfield's hideous dive to try and win a penalty late on). I thought I'd seen every tactic possible in football over the years, but man-marking the fourth official was a new one on me. Good side though. Will be there or thereabouts.

Mansfield fans might be interested to know that it was the introduction of Ollie Palmer which swung the game in our favour.

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

I thought a point was fair. Clohessy was lucky not to get sent off, without seeing it again I thought Pierre was lucky not to get sent off, Palmer was lucky not to give away a penalty. I think that we're probably looking good for a play off spot.

Cisak at crosses worries me, Shaw worries me, McCallum is anonymous for much of the game and should be dropped for Palmer who seems fairly limited but does the job McCallum should have been doing. I didn't think we were that bad save a period when McCallum and Palmer were up front together... Looked better after that. In the first half we didn't really have any attacking support, James, Moore and Payne are all fairly similar and as a unit were playing too deep. We missed the tenacity of Pritchard. Cox was marked out well, as was Simpson. McCallum was awful and contributed nothing to the play. Clohessy's forward runs were about 3 seconds too slow.

Still not convinced by the negativity surrounding James. I thought he played quite well, defensively his off the ball work was good and he tracked McGinn well. He was also the only player looking to make something happen from deep I thought. However with the issues highlighted above regarding our attacking play there wasn't much he could do. - Although I didn't realise the sloppy back pass was from James.

It was disappointing how we conceded, it was fairly obvious that Wycombe's main plan was to get the ball down the left, cut back to Jacobson to cross from deep to the back post. The disappointment for me is that Jacobson was consistently left open and able to do this with minimal pressure. It shouldn't come as a surprise either as Wycombe tend to do this a fair bit.