You can go through every game at Brisbane Road this season and there is a reason why fans will take to their seats unhappy, despite positive results on the road
The atmosphere at Leyton Orient after the final whistle on Saturday was toxic – unfortunately it has been coming for a while.
Visitors Yeovil Town ended a run of five consecutive defeats in League Two to triumph 1-0 at Brisbane Road and they are not the first to enjoy themselves in east London this season.
Newport County, Mansfield Town and now the Glovers have visited E10 and left with all three points.
The only club the O’s have defeated on their own turf this season is Stevenage – once in the league and also in the EFL Trophy.
But the big difference on Saturday was the reaction of the Orient fans after the full-time whistle.
We have become accustomed to boos, but the supporters turned on O’s president Francesco Becchetti as referee Darren Deadman signalled the end of the match.
At least a hundred fans in the West Stand chanted ‘Becchetti Out’ at the Italian and eventually a large chunk of the whole crowd joined in, before he responded by waving them away sarcastically.
It was ugly to watch and having thought about the situation over and over again, neither the fans calling for Becchetti to leave or his reaction is going to help in any way.
The Italian is of course allowed to respond if people are shouting at him to leave and hurling abuse in his direction, but it might have been better to just walk away and not incite more anger.
Although the fans are entitled to their opinion the harsh reality is Becchetti does not look like leaving any time soon and if he did, then the club would be left with a large wage bill to contend with.
What needs to happen is for everybody associated with the O’s to start pulling in the right direction and it does start from the top.
Becchetti has made some massive mistakes at Orient, but at the same time has put a lot of money into the club and that, in his opinion, shows his ambition to succeed.
However, what has contributed to the O’s poor start at home is fans being confused with matters off the pitch, before a ball has been kicked.
The first home match of the season against Fulham in the EFL Cup had fans asking why Jay Simpson wasn’t involved and why certain players hadn’t been given squad numbers.
You can go through every game at Brisbane Road this season and there is a reason why fans will take to their seats unhappy, despite extremely positive results on the road.
When Newport visited on August 13 once again Simpson wasn’t involved and a lacklustre display resulted in a 1-0 defeat.
Stevenage made the trip to E10 next and the stadium was buzzing by the time of kick-off because Simpson was back in the starting team and the end result? A 3-0 victory.
Mansfield Town were the next side to Brisbane Road and although O’s had won at Grimsby Town the week before, confusion was again present because last season’s top goalscorer was unavailable.
The Stags won 2-1 and although Orient beat Stevenage 3-1 in the EFL Trophy a few days later – they were helped by Dean Wells getting a red card in the 13th minute.
At the weekend, some supporters would have been asking why Dean Cox had left and a few chanted his name in the 39th minute when O’s won a free-kick.
What also didn’t help was losing the experience of right-back Nicky Hunt at half time due to injury and replacing him with Aron Pollock.
The young centre-back, despite his talent, struggled in an unusual position and this caused irritation because Sean Clohessy, a right-back, was allowed to leave last month.
In addition to this, Alan Dunne, an experienced defender, continues to train with the youth team when he would have been handy on Saturday and prevented Pollock being played out of position.
The reason Clohessy left the club and Dunne is training with the kids is down to the O’s president and players being frozen out has to stop.
Orient were poor on Saturday and some fans vented their anger at Becchetti. That doesn’t help, but what will go some way to stopping that is if the Italian communicates more with supporters about what’s going on at the club.
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