2016/17 Prediction League; Game 36 v Leyton Hewitt (home)

Div3North · 13-03-2017, 00:56

Accrington Stanley

V

Leyton Orient

2016/17 Prediction League; Game 36 v Clapton Orient (home)

It looks, you’d have to say, as though there’s developing a certain inevitability to the relegation slots from League Two come the beginning of May ............... Newport, who’d lost the previous game 0-4 at home to Orient, pulled a sneaky 2-1 win at Crewe out of the fire, courtesy of an 89th minute winner by skipper Joss “Bite Me” Labadie), to welcome new Manager Mike Flynn to The Toughest Job In Football (following that nice Mr Graham Westlife as Manager) .......... prior to that, they’d won one (Hartlepool 3-1), drawn 6 (including Donnie, Grimsby, Morecambe and Colchester) and lost 11 of their previous 18 ..........they’ve won a total of just 6 games in the League, and gone out of all the Cups in quick-fire time .............. Orient – who’ve lost 22 games, four more than anybody else – followed up their sparkling 4-0 win at Straddy Park (or wherever the hell Newport play these days) by succumbing 3-0 at home to Grimsby (their 16th game of the season when they’ve failed to score, against 5 clean sheets) ......... they’ve done Plymouth 3-2 away, drawn 2-2 at Carlisle (before Carlisle started free-falling down the table – they’ve lost their last four, and five of the last seven, and are seriously going to get caught by Mansfield, or Blackpool, or someone unless they can turn it round) and beaten Crawley, us, Colchester, Morecambe and Stevenage to name just five ...........of the nine .............in 2017 they’ve won 2, drawn one and lost 10 ........... Newport are on 29 points from 35; Orient are on 32 from 36; next worst are Hartlepool – six points and some goals to the good, with Crewe a further point ahead. A six (or nine) point gap with 10 (11) games left isn’t a thrilling place to be ................

Barry Hearn says that he, “ ....... now regrets selling the club to businessman Francesco Becchetti”, adding, “looking where we are now, I would never have sold if I had thought this was going to happen. Hindsight is a wonderful advisor." Flynn says that Newport, " ... want to fight and put the pressure on the other teams and drag them in; we're not going down without a fight, not on my watch. It's not happening”. I’ve no doubt Mr Labadie’s up for a fight ...........or at least, a byte ......

You also have a shrewd idea where teams think they are when they start shipping out their better (more costly?) players; with that in mind, Orient (and Hull and Buriram Utd (Thailand, if you don’t know, and he was reputedly earning £40k a month there)) striker Jay Simpson scored 25 in 48 last season, but just 3 in 17 this, before exporting himself to the Philadelphia Union in the MLS back in January; 12 left last summer, and 8 have gone since, including Armand Gnaduillet (to Blackpool), Scott Kashket to Wycombe (where he’s had some significant impact), Dean Cox to Crawley, Sean Clohessy to Bromley, and CM Zan Benedicic (who they’d only signed in mid-September) to Olbia Calcio 1905 (they’re an Italian “Lega Pro” (3rd Division, I think) side) ...................Last player they ProperSigned was ex Huddersfield, Scunthorpe, Oxford and Bengaluru (I-League, and he only stayed four months) MF Michael Collins, and that was on 28th September (so it was) ....... they have loan-signed striker Rowan Liburd from Stevenage and winger Jordan Green from Bournemouth, but against that they’ve loaned out strikers Jordan Bowery (who they signed from Oxford in July) to Crewe, and Ollie Palmer to Luton.

We did them 1-0 chez nous last season (Scott Brown with the goal), having already done them by the same score chez eux in October …….there aren’t that many teams against whom we have a 100% lifetime record, and that situation didn’t last, of course, because we went to the Matchbox Stadium in December, had GoldenBoots sent off after 24 minutes, and lost by the odd goal in one ................three games, three 1-0 outcomes; don’t bet on that run continuing!

Counting Caretakers (Andy Edwards, twice) they’ve had five managers this season (so far), and current incumbent is 33-year old Daniel John Webb (Southend, Hull, Cambridge, Yeovil, Marsaxlokk (!), Wombles, Salisbury, Bath and Chelmsford), son of ex Chelsea and QPR legend David Webb. Their leading scorers are Paul McCallum with 12, Gavin Massey with 8, and Ollie Palmer (see "Luton", above) with 5

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 7.45pm on Tuesday 14th March ..............Their position is pretty parlous, really..... although “pretty” might have been an unfortunate choice of word. We wish them all the very best, of course, starting from Wednesday, and hope they raise the reported £250k to settle the tax bill ............ but we do still need points, and if we have to take points off them, then, sadly, c’est la vie! And anyway, their next match after us is Doncaster Rovers (at home)

Good luck to everyone! .......... Keep the Faith! ......And thanks for playing!