Five-star Orient romp to an impressive victory over Gills to keep promotion hope alive
Orient's Dean Cox celebrates with a ball boy after scoring against Gillingham (pic: Simon O'Connor) - Credit: Archant
Six years ago Leyton Orient romped to a huge 5-1 victory over Gillingham as they hung onto their slim chances of an automatic promotion spot in League One.
Orient's David Mooney slots his first goal past Gillingham keeper Stuart Nelson (pic: Simon O'Connor) - Credit: Archant
A brace from David Mooney and goals from Kevin Lisbie, Dean Cox and Chris Dagnall sealed at least a spot in the play-offs at Brisbane Road on April 12, 2014
Mooney’s angled shot opened the scoring and Cox’s volley made it 2-0 inside the opening 10 minutes.
The game was over as a contest when Lisbie fired in from Moses Odubajo’s cross and then, a minute later, he pounced on a mistake to tee up striker partner Mooney’s second.
Orient took a comfortable 4-0 lead into the half-time break to give the home faithful plenty to cheer about.
You may also want to watch:
Dagnall then beat three players to add a fifth in the 78th minute before Craig Fagan scored the Gills a late close-range consolation.
The convincnig win was Orient’s first in six matches and mathematically secured them at least a play-off spot following a recent dip in form that had seen them slip out of the top two.
Most Read
- 1 Teenager found dead in Victoria Park
- 2 Driver arrested after police 'drugs patrol' stops car in Whitechapel
- 3 Two in five people in Tower Hamlets may have had Covid-19
- 4 'I can save the planet with my seaweed' scientist in east London claims
- 5 Drug and alcohol abuse by Tower Hamlets parents and children soars
- 6 Disgraceful management of the pandemic
- 7 'Laptop bonanza' for schoolchildren in Poplar to help survive lockdown gloom
- 8 Post deliveries in east London hit by Covid crisis among Royal Mail staff
- 9 That's so raven: Everything you need to know about the guardians of the Tower
- 10 Pressure on government to provide laptops for lockdown learning
O’s boss Russell Slade hailed his rampant side’s display by saying: “It was a really dominant performance and I’m really pleased that the right people scored goals.
“We scored some smashing goals, there was some lovely play that opened Gillingham up and our finishing was clinical.”
Gills boss Peter Taylor groaned: “That was probably the most embarrassing first 45 minutes I’ve had as a manager.
“All you saw was the very good play from Orient and the very poor play from us.
“You didn’t see any attacking play from us but you did see some poor defending, some poor decision-making and we were just too far away from them.”
It could have been a season defining moment for the O’s but they ended up missing out on automatic promotion and instead making it to the play-off final where they lost on penalties to Rotherham United in such heartbreaking fashion at Wembley Stadium.
Leyton Orient: Jones, Cuthbert, Clarke, Baudry, Omozusi, Odubajo, Vincelot (Ness 70), Lundstram, Cox, Mooney (Dagnall 70), Lisbie (Batt 79). Unused subs: Larkins, Sawyer, James, Simpson.
