Stevenage (h) Preview

What a difference a few days make. After Tuesday night's victory against Charlton Athletic in the Capital One Cup, we headed North to Tranmere Rovers confident after playing some good passing football against the Championship side. However, that good work on Tuesday night was undone by a performance that can only be described as abysmal.

The most alarming part of Saturday's defeat to Tranmere is definitely the possession percentage for Orient. We had a massive 25% worth of possession against a Tranmere side that is pretty similar to ours, so to have such little of the ball is alarming and must surely be a wake up call to Russell Slade.

We called for change for the majority of last season and Slade was reluctant to change his dour 4-5-1 formation but to give him credit, he has made a change this summer. Now, we have a 4-1-2-1-2 formation with Mathieu Baudry at the base of the diamond and Dean Cox at the tip of the diamond. Now, it would be naive and very stupid to think that we would get instant success. It will take time for the players to gel and to gain familiarity with the new formation but I don't think Slade can afford to have as slow a start as he did last season.

The biggest shock on Saturday was the inclusion of Scouse keeper Jamie Jones. Jones has suffered with a shoulder injury over pre-season, the same injury that kept him out for all but six games of last season. I believed that Ryan Allsop should have kept his place in goal as reward for his fine performance against Charlton in midweek. However, that wasn't to be and Allsop watched on as Jones made a hash of goals one and three for Tranmere.

After a humiliating defeat to a Tranmere side that many Orient fans believed were similar to ours, we now face two games, against Stevenage and Hartlepool United, that will tell us a lot about this Orient side than we know at this stage.



Orient

Scott Cuthbert left the field on Saturday afternoon injured so it looks like Slade has one inforced change to make. It looks likely that Cuthbert's replacement on Saturday, Ben Chorley, will deputise in Cuthbert's absence.

David Mooney simply cannot start. He has had two starting appearances and has failed to deliver in either so it is now time for Michael Symes to make his first starting appearance for the club. I also would be prepared to drop Kevin Lisbie too. Lisbie has not performed particularly well in either of the two games and Ryan Brunt is available to start after a good performance on Tuesday.



Stevenage

Stevenage will be hard opposition to start the season with at Brisbane Road. Stevenage followed up a 3-1 win the League Cup against AAFC Wimbledon with a 1-1 draw at home to Carlisle United and will look to build on that tomorrow evening.

The Hertfordshire club are a different one to the side that shocked much of League One last season. The biggest departure was that of Graham Westley midway through last campaign and over the summer, some of the players that served Westley and Stevenage so well have also departed.

Lawrie Wilson, Scott Laird, Joel Byrom, Michael Bostwick and John Mousinho have all depart the Lamex and this has meant that Gary Smith has had to put together his own side, after inheriting a good squad from Westley.

I don't think anyone is expecting Stevenage to copy their successes of last season but a comfortable mid-table finish would be a successful season for the club. Like many however, they must be wary of the bottom four. As last season proved, a couple of wins and you can look ahead at the top ten but a couple of defeats on the trot and you're purched perilously amongst the clubs fighting it out to stay up.

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