Four in a row at Orient

AFC Bournemouth succumbed to their fourth consecutive defeat away at Leyton Orient on Saturday.

In front of a travelling support of around 1,500, a defensive mix up midway through the first half gifted the home side the lead through Charlie MacDonald, before a second defensive error at the start of the second half all but ended the game for Eddie Howe's side when MacDonald scored his second.

Brett Pitman briefly restored hope with a goal on 66 minutes, only for Kevin Lisbie to score Orient's third with ten minutes remaining.

cummingsfan wrote...

I didn`t make any notes so I am in no position to write a match report but here`s why we lost.

GK
Jalal, completely indecisive for the first goal, kicking again poor, & communication with his centre backs non-existent. Had no chance with the second & third but poor. I actually miss James; & having watched Alsopp a number of times for Orient, think he might be a better shout than both.

Defence

This is why we lost. Francis and the centre backs had an absolute shocker. I`m unwilling to criticise Ritchie as he was the best of the bad bunch despite being an attacking winger being played horribly out of position. Since Howe arrived & with Daniels & Elphick in the side they have worked as a unit, been very well drilled & organised from set pieces, none of the above were even remotely present today & Seaborne was so bad it was almost match fixing.

The first goal was a big long looping pass that everybody in the defence decided was going out so ignored it. Jalal appeared to be especially culpable for this, as it would have gone out metres from where he was stood. David Mooney chased it, laid it back to MacDonald, 1-0. It was a ridiculously stupid goal to give away; embarrassingly easy & extremely unprofessional. But it was to get worse.

The second goal was another hopeful punt at head height which either one of our CBs could have headed with ease. Seaborne had a token attempt; missed horribly, & the ball dropped behind them to Macdonald (although 2 or three Orient players were now behind the defence & clear on goal, who slotted it home despite Jalal getting some sort of contact on it. Second stupid goal of the day. You often hear it described as 'schoolboy defending` but even at school level there would be an absolute inquisition after the entire defence were beaten by such a woeful pass.

Now the third, will appear to be the fault of Matt Richie when replayed on television, who slipped to allow Moses Odubajo through into the box. However, what was more notable to me was the vast amount of time Kevin Lisbie was given to control the ball & slot home whilst stood on the 6 yard line. Absolutely appalling, stupid goal number three.

These were not isolated incidents either, Francis was rarely to be
found manning his post all afternoon, & was almost never goal or ball side of his opposite number. Seaborne tried a late attempt to concede yet another goal with pathetically poor control to allow Lisbie straight through, he mopped up after himself by catching up & tackling him, but deserves about as much credit as a man who throws an egg firmly into his own face but then heads it back into his hand without it cracking.

All 3 were shockingly bad, & looked disorganised all afternoon.
We desperately, desperately miss Elphick & Daniels.

Midfield.

When Groves was manager I couldn`t even try & guess what we were trying to do, but today I knew exactly what we were trying to do & it was ridiculous. Long balls aimed at O kane, Fogden, Mcquoid to flick on. Shockingly this trio of borrowers barely won a header all afternoon. Richard Hughes pulled off a passable Danny Hollands impression by passing sideways & backwards for an entire afternoon, & Pugh was almost completely anonymous, occasionally running half-heartedly into a crowd of orient defenders.

Strikers.

Grabban. Alone. Decided he wasn`t going to bother being on the shoulder of the last defender or attacking crosses; he`d much prefer to play midfield. So he did. When Ritchie did manage to attack & whip balls along the 6 yard box, we had all of our players lining the edge & Orient looking around in disbelief that there was nobody challenging.

We improved pretty briefly when Pitman was introduced, & his goal was a thing of beauty, a looped diagonal ball from O Kane caressed into the opposite side of the goal on the volley with the keeper left helpless. After that it was back to normal; our defensive frailties preventing any sort of build-up play & stifling our attacks. Ridiculous hopeless punted balls & no penetration whatsoever became the order of the day.

To top it all off, the away accommodation is awful at Brisbane road. Some of the worst I`ve seen for years. There`s no space, the toilets are revolting, the stewards were searching handbags on the way into the ground & the size of the seats would be frowned upon in a Wendy House. £23 is the worst value for money I`ve had all season.

The 2 goal lead was down to disorganisation in the defence, & the lack of threat up front was caused by playing 4-5-1 without a '1.' The most frustrating days I've had at football since Crawley away. None of our players deserve any credit whatsoever except Ritchie.



As a footnote, this result could partially be my fault. I am now on a run of 13 years without seeing Bournemouth win in the town where I live. This includes 7 years worth of fixtures against Northampton Town, 3 years against Saints, & now the first year in Leyton.

We need to be honest about today - it was a dismal showing.

Eddie set the team up all wrong. Orient have been on as bad a run as we have and lack confidence... why set up defensively, with a cluttered midfield and one forward?? For 15 minutes we looked motivated and ran around a lot but there was no product. Grabban was on his own and easily contained (Baudry had a particularly good game BTW). After that we fell back and let Orient come onto us ... sad to watch.

Jalal was resonsible for a shocker for the first goal and distributed badly throughout. The centre backs were indecisive and Ritchie was badly caught out at LB - the excellent Orient winger roasted him for their third. (Painter seems to have disappeared completely. Has he been sent back to Brighton in disgrace?)

Midfield was a mess - no one taking control. Compare with Orient's Cox, who hardly put a foot wrong and was easily my MOM.

Upfront Grabban was completely isolated... what on earth was Eddie doing? No one played with 15 yards of him. It was painful.

Brett made a difference briefly and scored a fine goal but then we went back to mindless midfield scurrying.

Sorry I can't find something positive to say. Eddie's got big, big problems if he's to halt this slide.

Minor point - we finished with Tubbs, Fraser and Pitman upfront. Our smallest forward line ever? Note these are my thoughts from my first game since MK away:

Interesting to note that although everyone says the back 4 were dreadful, Seaborne seems to taking the most flak. I thought Cook was the worse of the two today and it was he at fault for the second (clearly didn't call loud enough to O'Kane that it was his header) and on numerous other occasions got the ball stuck under his feet, etc. Summed up his day that in injury time he was out-paced by Kevin Lisbie (who must be 37+ now?!).

Jalal's kicking, as documented was woeful. Not sure if he could/should have claimed the ball for the opener. I think his anger at Seaborne was for letting MacDonald run past him to get a tap in, so quite justified really. We conceded though because we were complacent and they had more desire to win it and keep the ball alive. If Eddie doesn't want James around next year though, I think it's time to check out Allsop.

I thought Hughes did ok, certainly only one willing to get stuck in throughout. O'Kane suffered once we went to 4-4-2 as because Hughes is solely going to sit, Eunan had to do all the running in the middle, he did ok when you consider this. Out wide we were pretty anonymous, clearly Pugh isn't 100% yet.

Grabban also had a shocker in my eyes. One thing you have to do as a lone frontman is make yourself known at every 50:50 and chase and harry everything. Not only did he fail with that but his link-up play was erratic and his shooting woeful. wasn't at all surprised that he was replaced.

Pitman did lift things when he came on and his finish was exquisite. However, even he, no doubt through frustration, succumbed to the level of the others in the team, as the game entered it's climax. He was probably my MotM for us though, which says something in itself!

We clearly lack strength in depth in key positions currently, as Elphick in particular, in my eyes, is a huge loss currently. I think we could cope with everything else happening if he was in the defence. Good teams are built from the backline and we look certain to concede currently.

After the flurry of results it's a shame to see us throwing this away. We now need a stroke of luck to come our way in order to instil some confidence and belief back in the players. Losing to the teams in and around you has clearly had an impact on many.

I'll see you at Stevenage... Just got back.
What a miserable 90 minutes of football, and a depressing journey through the night to get back to this computer and say...

'THANKS FOR NOTHING AFCB'

Took me about 5 minutes to suss that we were going to be poor today.
The confidence and swagger has gone. We got to the top of the league and suddenly the foot came off the gas.

Those that follow me on twitter will see my comments about Seabourne. He's come from a premiership squad, but would never get a game in that league unless the entire squad, chairman and his dog caught norvovirus.

Now I know we have injuries at the back but if we had spent the 'fools gold' on a couple of decent squad defenders, instead of having a bigger wings collection than an RAF museum, then we might have picked up some points this past fortnight.

AFCB fans were excellent. Very noisy despite the atrocities being served up on the pitch. Well done.

Failure to beat Doncaster next week, and I can't see that happening, will put an end to automatic promotion, and on this form, the play offs seem nigh on impossible.

Still, all was not lost. Managed to get some decent spices in an Asian shop Saturday morning. Just can't get good curry out here!

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