The Young Americans [Leyton Orient]

Walter : If you've ever heard the story of Moacyr Barbosa, Brazil's goalkeeper in their 2-1 loss to Uruguay in the WC Final 1950, you will be sure to understand that Lucas will never want to set foot in Brazil ever again.

A great update, with Colombia going well.

Thanks Walter.
I didn’t know that name. I was more thinking about Colombia striker Andres Escobar.
Check out the ESPN 30 for 30 “The Two Escobars” on Youtube if you have not done so already.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/TYA_zpsd9c34ca5.jpg

FIFA World Cup 2014

Quarter-finals

Germany has the ball the most and is the better team. Spain's dominance in world football I finally broken.

Croatia continues their surprising run by knocking out Mexico.

Colombia scored just 1 minute before full time to take the game to OT but Lukaku is the hero for Belgium in extra time.

Holland has the ball 63% of the time and they are never in trouble against a Greece team that have no business being in the semifinals.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/WC8_zps5da41f44.jpg

Semi-finals

After 15 minutes Croatia is down a goal and down a man. Then it’s difficult to beat anybody and especially a red-hot Belgium.

It might look even on paper but Germany dominated the game and makes it to their first finals in twelve year.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/WC4_zps122f5a97.jpg

I guess theese were "Quarter Finals" and "Semi finals", no? Great results, good luck.

Adrian18Ro : I guess theese were "Quarter Finals" and "Semi finals", no? Great results, good luck.

Ups

You are correct

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/TYA_zpsd9c34ca5.jpg

Pre Season in the Championship

FIFA World Cup 2014 Final

In front of 79.000 in the Estádio do Maracanã, Romelu Lukaku opens the scoring after just 1 minute. But when the stadium clock shows 15 minutes its Germany in front 2-1.
Germany adds two more and takes home their 4th world cup title and the first since 1990 in Italy.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/WCFinal_zps42ab4fdc.jpg


The first appointment for new Hd. Scout Paul Montgomery was to put together a comprehensive report of all the players from the Barclays Premier League's top teams that were available for loan. I had the mighty amount of £625K available on my transfer budget but had no intentions on using them to go out and buy new players. The kind of players I could buy for that amount of money would not help me much and could just as easily be picked up for free. Instead I decided to adjust the budget and turn the transfer money into salary instead. That gave me a little more wiggle room to work with.


A total of 15 players walked out the door. The loan players from last season, a few backup players and a lot of youngsters I hardly knew by name.


With that many players leaving I had to add new players and a total of 10 news faces showed up on the first day of training at Chigwell training ground. Four of them we had picked up on free transfers and another six players were loan players from some of the biggest clubs in England.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/b_zps0cdefec1.jpg


DL Ben Gordon
I needed another option than Gary Sawyer who was getting up in age (29) and not getting any faster and Luke Giverin who was an up and coming player but still a bit inexperienced and uneven in his performances.
Ben Gordon had been under contract with Chelsea FC for some years but had never made the first team. Instead he had been on loan all over UK. The last season he had played for Ross Country in the Scottish Premiership and had finished the season with an impressive 7.48 overall rating.
I hoped he could duplicate that with Leyton Orient.

AMC Tom Lawrence
Tom had played for us last season on a loan deal from Manchester United and scored 10 goals and had 5 assists in 31 games with an 7.03 rating. He was released by United at the end of the season and I was more than happy to pick him up for free.

GK Gary Woods
With only one goalkeeper on the roster I needed depth but picking up Woods was probably a mistake even if he was free.

GK Luciano
With the two other keepers being relatively young I need routine. Luciano was outspoken, easy to like and still a solid last anchorman between the posts.

DRC Grant Hall
Hall came on a loan deal from our new parent club Tottenham H (more on that later). A tall strong player that added depth to the defensive line.

MC Lee Lucas
A deep lying playmaker I borrowed from my Danish colleague Michael Laudrup in Swansea. Creative and good with the ball and excellent passing. Will challenge for a spot on the midfield.

AM/MC Chuks Aneke
At 188 cm and 93 kg Chuks Aneke is a physical specimen that joins us from Arsenal.

MC Joe Rothwell
Another midfielder. Only 19 years old the Manchester United player will spend his second loan year with Leyton Orient. Unlikely he will see much playing time unless the injury situation gets completely out of hand.

ST Adam Morgan
The young Liverpool FC player scored 12 goals in 16 games for Walsall last season in the Sky Bet League 1. With the highest finishing attribute of any player on the O´s roster he will fight with Shaun Batt for the place up front next to David Mooney.

AMC João Teixeira
Another Liverpool player who played for Walsall last season. Got all the tools he need to be a great player and just need to grow into his body. If he can improve on his pace and strength the sky will be the limit for this young Portuguese.


The preseason games were mostly against lower league teams we were supposed to beat handily.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/a_zpse8378b04.jpg


The one standout performance in the pre season came from striker Shaun Batt. We had played the entire previous season with two strikers up front. That had left us shot in the midfield on several occasions but in the Sky Bet League 1 we were able to overcome that with brute force.
Now in the Sky Bet Championship I was not sure that was the case and considered to move away from two striker system.
Shaun Batt knew that it was his spot in the starting lineup that was going to be converted into an AMC and he felt the pressure not just from Mooney but also from the striker I brought inn on loan Adam Morgan.

In the game against Falkirk, Shaun Batt had a once in a lifetime performance. Shaun scored his first goal after 11 minutes. He then continued and scored two more in the next 21 minutes for a hattrick.
Not a bad performance but little did I know that he was just getting started.
In the next 5 minutes he scored another hattrick for the unlikely double-hattrick in 30 minutes all done before the break.
I had seen enough and substituted him at halftime with a perfect 10*

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/2014_preseason4_zps2fa36941.jpg


I mentioned that we now had a new parent club. The first thing the new baby face owner did when taking over the club was to sign a deal with Tottenham Hotspur. The deal would give us access to Tottenham loan players, £110K in cash each year and a yearly friendly against the Premier League team.

*This is the first time I can remember any of my players scoring a perfect 10 since the game changed from CM to FM.

Looks like you have a very strong lineup going into the Championship. 8-0 against Falkirk is just 100% amazing! 6 goals and he is still looking calm is a sign of a player with a composed mind

Walter : Looks like you have a very strong lineup going into the Championship. 8-0 against Falkirk is just 100% amazing! 6 goals and he is still looking calm is a sign of a player with a composed mind

Thanks Walter.
We are a bit young but looking good.

The tail of Shaun Batt is one of the main reasons I enjoy FM. It’s not just a case of looking at the players attributes and plugging inn the guy with the highest numbers.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/TYA_zpsd9c34ca5.jpg

August 2014

We started out the new season on the road against Ipswich Tower. The first fifteen minutes the two teams used to feel each out. Lots of players behind the ball and very few open chances. We took the lead after 30 minutes of play when Nathan Clarke showed the real definition of the phrase quarterback style. His long throw got all the way to the back post where Mathieu Baudry could slide it over the line.

We dropped deeper on the field and allowed Ipswich Tower to keep the ball and looked for counter attacks instead. The tactic worked until the 55th minute. We failed to clear a corner and paid the price. Ipswich Tower pressed on to get the winning goal but we held tight for our first points in the Sky Bet Championship.

We didn't have much time to celebrate. Just three days later we slaughtered Swindon in the first round of the League Cup.

The Sunday after we played our 3rd game in a week and our first league home game of the season. A full house would show up to see us play Charlton Athletic.
Charlton Athletic was predicted to finish in the bottom half of the league so this was the kind of games we needed to win if we were to have a chance to stay up this season. The game was a real colercostare. We were behind twice but still managed to come away with a win after we scored twice in five minutes in the second half.


When we went to play the Sheff Wed I was prepared for the first loss of the season but this time it was us getting off to a quick start with a goals already after 6 minutes. Another two goals by Shaun Batt gave us another win.

Next we played league leader Burnley. Once again we dug ourselves in a 0-2 hole at home after just 20 minutes. And once again we managed to turn it around and escaper with a 3-2 win.

The big player of the game was Shaun Batt. Since he had scored his double-hattrick in 30 minutes in the preseason he had looked like a different player. He was now taking the field with a confidence he didn't have before and Shaun Batt was second on the top scorer list in the league with six goals after just four games. I was glad that I had renewed his contract until 2017 before he became this new and improved model (he was now called “The Batt 6.0” in the locker by his teammates).

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/2014_aug_goals_zps97ac64f6.jpg

I had a few players on the teams struggling to keep the moral high. It was a few of the loan players I had brought in before the season that had not seen much playing time when the season had started.
Many of them would now get a chance in the League Cup game against Stoke City. It was my second chance against a team from the Barclays Premier League since i had taken over the control of the team.
We scored an own goal after just seven minutes and from there it was uphill.

We finished the month with a very strong 2-2 draw against a former Barclays Premier League team in Cardiff.

The first month in the Sky Bet Championship had gone way better than expected.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/2014_aug_results_zpsb29e6c3f.jpg

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/2014_aug_Standing_zps0fbb4eb3.jpg

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The transfer window was getting ready to close and this time around some of the major players in European football got involved. The biggest move was made by Manchester United and FC Barcelona. New United manager Jürgen Klopp decided to move in a new direction and made a deal with FC Barcelona to sell Wayne Rooney for £22.5M. In return FC Barcelona shipped Jordi Alba to Manchester for the same amount.

Other names changing teams was Pato coming back from Brazil once again to join Chelsea and Nicolas Lodeiro was sent to Tottenham from Porto.

With Shaun Batt and David Mooney playing well up front I had not been able to give Liverpool loan player Adam Morgan any playing time, and before we reached the end of the transfer window he demanded to have his loan terminated.
I needed to find another backup striker in case something were to happen to my striker duo.

We had a constant stream of agents offering us players for cheap. Most of them was rubbish and not worth a second look but for some reason a lot of the players coming out of Italy had a higher standard than the rest.
I could easily had turned Leyton Orient into an Italian enclave with cheap Italian free agents but decided to stay with what I got and only signed what I needed.

I signed two Italian free agents.

Davide Bottone was a 28-year old Italian with a history from Torino. He would add some much needed routine to the midfield and i have alway been a sucker for players with high determination.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/2014_Sep_transfer_zpscd1ec9ca.jpg

The other player I signed was the much needed striker. Ettore Mendicino had played with Lazio earlier in his career and had proven that he could still score goals when he scored 11 for Salernitana the year before.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/striker_zps06eedef7.jpg

On the field we got a costly win over Watford in an eventful game. We missed a penalty during the regular 90 minutes but instead scored late in OT. But we also lost Dean Cox for up to 5 weeks with a pulled hamstring.
Dean Cox had won the “Player of the year” award last year in the Sky Bet League 1, but had struggled in adapting to the Sky Bet Championship and had not dominated like he had the previous season. I struggled to find the reason for his problems.
In the lower division he had finished the season with 22 assists but so fare this year he had not been the creator of a single goal.
It was still a big blow to loss him for that amount of time. The plan was to play AMC Tom Lawrence and Luke Giverin as AML in his absence.

We also started to feel that we were going into the season with a very slim squad. Struggled to field a team for the midweek game against Doncaster after I had messed up which players could play for the U-21 team the day before and I suddenly found myself with two teenagers on the roster. That gave 16-year Horace Ifill, who was one of the hot prospects from last years youth intake, his debut on the first team. Horace Ifill had developed a lot better than the other youngster Callum Wilson in his first season as a pro.


The Leyton Orient overall scoring record was still held by Tommy Johnston with 121 goals, but in the game against first place Brighton, David Mooney passed a milestone when he scored his 100th league goal.
With the win over Brighton we moved into first place after 4/23rd of the season was played.


The Batt 6.0 (aka Shaun Batt) became the first player to score a hattrick in a league game since I took over as manager when he netted three goals in the last game of the month against Huddersfield.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/2014_Sep_Results_zps417020ab.jpg

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/2014_Sep_Standing_zps4899062b.jpg

A great start to life in the Championship and great writing. Villa will push you hard if theyve got most of their players from the BPL though.

Excellent update, as always, and congratulations on reaching 100 replies!

Incredible start to your new division. May I ask where Blackpool are, if they haven't been relegated?

A great start! Keep it up if you can.

k1rups : A great start to life in the Championship and great writing. Villa will push you hard if theyve got most of their players from the BPL though.

Thanks k1rups. Aston Villa is the huge favorite to move back up. Also a bit surprising to see the Wolves near the top. They moved up from the League 1 together with us.

Neal : Excellent update, as always, and congratulations on reaching 100 replies!

Thanks Neal.
The American twist will come soon

Walter : Incredible start to your new division. May I ask where Blackpool are, if they haven't been relegated?

Sorry Walter.
Blackpool was relegated (with Bolton and Yeovil) in the 2013/14 season. This year they are among the teams fighting to move back up.

MrJK : A great start! Keep it up if you can.

Thanks MrJK

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/TYA_zpsd9c34ca5.jpg

October 2014

It was not often I change the tactic from my preferred 4-1-1-2-2 to start a game and I cannot remember to have done it at home since I took over Leyton Orient. But against Aston Villa on a Tuesday in October I decided to start out a bit more careful.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/2014_oct_formation_zps62cba501.jpg

Villa were relegated from the Barclays Premier League in the 18th spot last season the previous season. The relegation had forced them to sell player for £75M before the season but they had also used £15.5M to add new players.
Aston Villa were currently in second place and the they were going to spent just over £24M on salaries this season compared to the £3.2M Leyton Orient would use this year.

It didn't help our case that we were tired after just three days of rest and that Aston Villa were looking for revenge after a 0-4 loss to Leeds United in the weekend.

Leyton Orient came away from the game with a respectable 0-1 loss but I was furious.

Aston Villa scored their goal on a corner just after the halftime. That was exactly what we had prepared to avoid all week leading up to the game.
We knew they scored a lot of goals after corners and had practiced defending set pieces in training during the week and we knew they scored most of their goals just after the half and had prepared for that at halftime by changing to a bit more defensive formation/playing style coming out for the second half.
And yet still we allowed them to score the winning goal on a corner after 49 minutes of play.

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/2014_oct_results_zps66b6a7bf.jpg

http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/Nordskov_dk/Leyton%20O/2014_oct_standing_zpsbf2ae7d4.jpg

I felt we were now at a place where I could start to focus on my second objective. Turning Leyton Orient in to America's team. If we kept up our current form I hoped the board would soon allow me to scout the US.
I started to pay closer attention to American soccer news.

The USMNT and Jürgen Klinsmann were going thru a horrible period. After losing six games in a row (including all three WC games) they finally managed to change the trend in a 2-0 win against Japan. Both goals were scored by Sunderland striker Jozy Altidore.