Leyton Orient 6 Newcastle United 1

Matchroom Stadium

Saturday 25th July Kick-off 3pm

Fourth pre-season friendly of the season.

The pre match advert said 'Don't Miss Out On Newcastle Hospitality' at the Matchroom Stadium, on this evidence no one will. We gave away goals for free today . An utter disgrace.

If we needed anything to point the way the season might proceed after three relatively easy wins so far, then this was the wake up call of all time. The starting eleven may be the one we have come the opening match against the Albion on August the 8th. Embarrassing defending and a sense the players didn't want to be there is very worrying.

£50,000 a week wages for some of these Premiership wannabe's and they perform like kids.

The defeat ended the three match winning run. We played in the yellow kit again however, the shorts worn were black on this occasion, as the result was.

 

Goals

04 Orient take the lead as Jimmy Smith heads home from a free kick, no one was marking him.

23 2-0 to the Os from the penalty spot (Sean Thornton) after Habib Beye hand balled according to the referee, harsh decision.

30 2-1 Joey Barton from the spot this time after Obafemi Martins goes down in the box, another dubious decision, our turn!

53 3-1 Scott McGleish overhead kick, super goal by the Orient player

55 4-1 Tamka Mkandawire scores from point blank after Scott McGleish turned provider and heads the ball down to the Orient forward. Newcastle a total mess at the back.

83 5-1 Ben Toser left for dead as Ryan Jarvis scores the filth for Orient.

86 6-1 Harry Baker finishes off a good move. The Os could score a dozen!

 

Acting Manager Comments: Chris Hughton

"It was disappointing and embarrassing. It had been a very good pre-season until then. This is a major disappointment in the pre-season programme but it’s not the be-all and end-all.

We start again on Monday and I’m absolutely sure the lads will put in a good training session and be in a good position to go into a tough game on Wednesday. Over a pre-season you know there will be highs and lows. I just thought we didn’t have as much in our legs as on other occasions. What you can’t do is beat ourselves up over one result. It’s a major blip in what’s been a good pre-season so far. I made a decision that because of the major disappointment of the result everything that was said should be through myself.

It's a strong possibility I could lead Newcastle out for the first game. My role is increasing. It will continue to do so. It will build to that first game. My thinking has been to prepare the group of lads as well as I can until someone comes in and takes over the role. The fact that hasn't happened means it starts to change. I have enjoyed my time at the club. I feel the passion the fans have for the club and it's always a very proud moment for me to be in charge of this group of lads. I am certainly prepared to be in charge of this team for whatever period the club want me to be. But I am not in the position where I can fight to keep players here. We will be the scalp this season. The players are aware of that. Now they have to combat that and be good enough to come back again."

 

Orient Manager Comments: Geraint Williams

"A clean sheet would have been nice. But all joking aside it was one of those freak results. We put everything in when we went forward and our goalkeeper made a couple of good saves, so it could have been a different scoreline. But we'll take a 6-1 win - we showed good attacking intent, putting the ball away, and we defended well at times too.

The first thing we said after the game was that we can't get carried away by this. We got beaten at Ebbsfleet on Tuesday and we weren't on the floor then because there were a lot of good things to come out of the performance.

Things have gone our way today - and we won't be getting carried away - but it was nice to put that on for our fans. We have worked on our attacking play and I'm a manager who likes his teams to score goals. You can only do that from a solid base at the back - so you have to get both elements right. We want to go forward and score goals but we also have to defend as a team to keep clean sheets."

 

Match Day Twitters From Leyton Orient

The signal held up, so below are my mutterings as the match progressed.