Sutton v Leyton Orient

[Del]

This game turned out to be a lot harder than most expected going in at half time.Once again the wind was a deciding factor as has been the case with many games at GGL this season. However we hung on for a 1-0 win and we are still very much in the hunt for a play off place. Now 11 points required from the last 6 games.
Going to be tough at Mansfield on Friday afternoon.

[jr]

Apr 9, 2022 16:49:37 GMT terrier said:

Real backs to the wall job that second half. Did Sutton even get into Orient’s penalty box the second half, can’t remember it? Leyton Orient didn’t have many clear cut chances though. Surprisingly disappointing crowd too. Attritional win, but a win is a win and that’s all that really counts. Enjoyed it.

Erm you know we were at Wembley last week and there’s this thing called Covid about that’s currently rife in the borough don’t you?

There’s loads that couldn’t go today and that’s only the people I know. In normal times we would have had a much larger crowd. Still not to me sniffed at mind

[toothman]

Is it just me but if you look at the extended highlights and after the managers have shaken hands Wellens appears to say something to Matt which really angers him and there is a heated exchange with other back room staff getting involved.  Any idea what that was all about?  

[toothman]

Apr 10, 2022 8:45:00 GMT toothman said:

Is it just me but if you look at the extended highlights and after the managers have shaken hands Wellens appears to say something to Matt which really angers him and there is a heated exchange with other back room staff getting involved.  Any idea what that was all about?  

I can answer my own question having just seen the Wellens post match interview on YouTube. he said he let his frustration with the referee in not controlling our time wasting antics and he took it out on Matt, which was wrong as it isn’t the managers fault but the officials and they would probably have done the same thing in the circumstances!   Wellens needs to be more aware having lost a match because of poor time management last week we would be unlikely to make the same mistake twice.  He did say he was going to apologise Matt I hope he did. I didn’t think we did anything wrong- did we? 

Regarding the officials I thought the referee was poor penalising the non existent but failing to see blatant pushes and shirt pulls. the assistant referee on the side opposite the main stand was non existent - he never flagged for anything , no excuse for not seeing anything he was as tall as Jenny the giraffe, at times he even blocked my view!

[shaneaib]

After going on nil up in the first half a tired team showed terrific resilience to hang on for the win. After Wembley psychologically as we entered added time the team were fantastic. I feared the worst so it was a great feeling heading into the club bar then seeing Deano on the sidelines of the Strikers are Key draw. When called upon he made good saves. Considering the space we ceded to Orient in the second half they didn't exploit it that much. A gritty win to be savoured.

As for the crowd size jr makes good points. In addition maybe some families are away with some schools on holiday. However on Twitter it was great to see one young lad tweet about yesterday's game being his first. Great to see new fans.

[trev]

Apr 10, 2022 9:00:09 GMT toothman said:

Apr 10, 2022 8:45:00 GMT toothman said:

Is it just me but if you look at the extended highlights and after the managers have shaken hands Wellens appears to say something to Matt which really angers him and there is a heated exchange with other back room staff getting involved.  Any idea what that was all about?  

I can answer my own question having just seen the Wellens post match interview on YouTube. he said he let his frustration with the referee in not controlling our time wasting antics and he took it out on Matt, which was wrong as it isn’t the managers fault but the officials and they would probably have done the same thing in the circumstances!   Wellens needs to be more aware having lost a match because of poor time management last week we would be unlikely to make the same mistake twice.  He did say he was going to apologise Matt I hope he did. I didn’t think we did anything wrong- did we? 

Regarding the officials I thought the referee was poor penalising the non existent but failing to see blatant pushes and shirt pulls. the assistant referee on the side opposite the main stand was non existent - he never flagged for anything , no excuse for not seeing anything he was as tall as Jenny the giraffe, at times he even blocked my view!

It's extraordinary that Wellens sought to berate Matty in that manner, especially because all the time wasting antics I witnessed in the dying minutes were perpetrated by Orient players e.g. one of theirs kicking the ball away when we were about to take a throw-in. Some of our lot were incensed, but it ultimately played into our hands. Orient were certainly in no hurry to seek an equaliser. Wellens' ire should have been focussed on his own players, in my view.

[is4]

Just seen Wellens post match interview on U tube.
Yes he should apologise to Matt or he has after the confrontation after the match.
He was correct in the fact the ref was not up to it in the second half.

[paz]

Big win for us. Played ok first half and deserved to be in the lead then definitely tired second half but still defended well, especially as we were without Goodliffe. They may be midtable but are in rich form with a new manager.

Got two very tough games over easter weekend so this 3 points just takes the pressure off a pinch.

[markf]

A game of two halves. A cliche maybe but certainly apt yesterday afternoon. This time the inevitable wind/stiff breeze that seems to accompany every match at GGL was heading towards the CR end and thus the side with the advantage dominated their respective half.

For U's it was the first period and as ever, it was a bright start and Enzio, Rob M and Harry B all went colse before Rob's inswinging flag kick was met by Joe K and he scored (an ocurrence becoming as inevitable as the wind). He's now only one goal from being U's joint top league scorer.

U's continued to dominate with the O's attacks sporadic if controlled in their passing and movement. Richie B couldn't quite get on another chance and tbh, I was conerned with the only one goal advantage at the break.

LO was a different proposition after the break and they played a lot of decent football but for all that their shots were mainly from outside the pen area and generally off-target. They had some decent ball players and apparently had 70% of the possession but it counted for nothing. One of their efforts smashed againt Coby Rowe's chest and he stood up well to it. I thought the defence was excellent yesterday but we looked a bit leggy beyond that back four in the second half (probably a result of an emotional 120 minutes 6 days earlier) so, this was a fantastic three points.

A fine reaction from the disappointment of Wembley, With Ben G, Will R and Donovan W the latest casualties. It was good to see Ali Smith back on the pitch too.

Both sets of fans had cause to moan at the ref. He gave some soft fouls and let other obvious stuff go. The modern ref doesn't like tackling but you can hold on above the waist and it will be ignored. The result of stamping down the career threatening challenges of the past going a bit too far? That's a whole new thread right there. He should have booked earlier in the match than he did but another, apparently subconcious, perhaps deliberate ploy is not to get the cards out too early (Bobb Madley on Joe K being the exception) unless it is a life threatening tackle. There was a very obvious back pass by LO in the second half that neither ref or lino (how tall was that bloke?) seemed to realise had happened. Once again his approach gave an impression of inconsistency. He wasn't biased just not great. The FLP gave him 7 suggesting the marker must have seen some truly awful refereeing performances this season; if the case, he isn't alone.

As for the gate that has been mentioned as disappointing, I would say anything over 3k for U's is good and it will go up next season when the away end is finished. I suspect the O's would have brought a fair few more if they could have (aside from the interlopers in the wrong end, who can blame them from doing so?).

And so to a maybe controversial observation. During the second half, someone along from me used a homophobic reference to describe a visiting player's reaction to a challenge. I didn't see who it was but I loudly pointed out that you can't really get way with that, c**t you might get away with but not that. As I was walking out of the match afterwards, one of our stewards informed me that another person had complained about my use of the c word. A "plummy" accent had said he expects to hear industrial language but the c word was too much. What I say to this guy is if you could hear that you must have heard the homophobic reference too as it was as equally audible. So the use of the c word is offensive (even when I didn't aim it anybody and was making a point) but the other wasn't? Says more about the complainant than it does me, I think.

Finally, I know nothing about horse racing and the days of betting on even the National are long gone. However, yesterday morning I was studying the runners and picked out the jockey's colours that were closest to that of SUFC. A 33-1 shot in the paper, the bloody nag won at 50-1. Oh well the three points was better than a return on a £2 each way bet!

Onto Mansfield for a match as tough as I reckoned Port Vale would be. A point would be fantastic.

[Andy K]

Thanks to the Wembley variant, I had the pleasure (!) of watching it online instead. For the 2nd home match running it was a pleasure to watch in the first half and I was watching through my fingers in the 2nd. But this time we came through and got the 3 points. I doubt we would have done if we were playing the likes of Exeter, Mansfield or Port Vale. But at the end of the season that is irrelevant. The only relevance is that we got 3 points, and need another 11 in the last 6 games to get a play off spot. Ironically if we do make the play offs, invariably it's the teams that go into the play offs with the most momentum that tend to perform better rather than those who limp in (hence why at the moment with the current standings, you'd probably put money on Mansfield and Salford being more successful than Northampton), so we could be setting ourselves up for a real grandstand finish.

We can do this, and Matt is absolutely right. We fear no one, and on our day we have shown we can beat anyone.

[davethegrave]

A friend of mine who couldn't go to Wembley, although he had a ticket, said that on TV late in the game it highlighted how we are susceptible to late goals, so really pleased that we managed to hold out yesterday.

[amberchoc]

Apr 10, 2022 21:23:26 GMT davethegrave said:

A friend of mine who couldn't go to Wembley, although he had a ticket, said that on TV late in the game it highlighted how we are susceptible to late goals, so really pleased that we managed to hold out yesterday.

It's not clear whether the stats actually back up that theory. Here’s a breakdown of the 55 goals we’ve conceded so far in normal time:

0-15 minutes - 6
16-30 minutes - 7
31-45 minutes - 10
First-half stoppage time - 0
46-60 minutes - 11
61-75 minutes - 6
76-90 minutes - 9
Second-half stoppage time - 6

So we’re quite tight in the first half an hour, but tend to concede with slightly greater frequency as games go on. It’s not as though the floodgates open though. It should also be noted that we’ve now kept 20 clean sheets this season (21 if you include Sheerwater), and that is a magnificent achievement.

[Andy K]

Apr 10, 2022 22:11:45 GMT amberchoc said:

Apr 10, 2022 21:23:26 GMT davethegrave said:

A friend of mine who couldn't go to Wembley, although he had a ticket, said that on TV late in the game it highlighted how we are susceptible to late goals, so really pleased that we managed to hold out yesterday.

It's not clear whether the stats actually back up that theory. Here’s a breakdown of the 55 goals we’ve conceded so far in normal time:

0-15 minutes - 6
16-30 minutes - 7
31-45 minutes - 10
First-half stoppage time - 0
46-60 minutes - 11
61-75 minutes - 6
76-90 minutes - 9
Second-half stoppage time - 6

So we’re quite tight in the first half an hour, but tend to concede with slightly greater frequency as games go on. It’s not as though the floodgates open though. It should also be noted that we’ve now kept 20 clean sheets this season (21 if you include Sheerwater), and that is a magnificent achievement.

Whilst not wanting to piss on anyone's bonfire and the clean sheets are a magnificent achievement, it is worth noting that all the 9 sides bar 1 currently above us in the league have conceded fewer goals that we have. Of course the yang to that ying is that only 3 sides above us have scored more.

[suttonpodcast]

Apr 10, 2022 22:11:45 GMT amberchoc said:

Apr 10, 2022 21:23:26 GMT davethegrave said:

A friend of mine who couldn't go to Wembley, although he had a ticket, said that on TV late in the game it highlighted how we are susceptible to late goals, so really pleased that we managed to hold out yesterday.

It's not clear whether the stats actually back up that theory. Here’s a breakdown of the 55 goals we’ve conceded so far in normal time:

0-15 minutes - 6
16-30 minutes - 7
31-45 minutes - 10
First-half stoppage time - 0
46-60 minutes - 11
61-75 minutes - 6
76-90 minutes - 9
Second-half stoppage time - 6

So we’re quite tight in the first half an hour, but tend to concede with slightly greater frequency as games go on. It’s not as though the floodgates open though. It should also be noted that we’ve now kept 20 clean sheets this season (21 if you include Sheerwater), and that is a magnificent achievement.

I have looked at similar before but just thought I would check. For this I am considering a 'late' goal to be 85+ mins

I am also pretending that Cup's are the same points system as league the points we have won/lost due to late goals is -10 which does sound a lot. The points that we have won due to late goals is +10

We have been 8 scored and conceded 8 a two goal swing either way once (both at home Oldham & Port Vale).

So it really has 'evened its self out' (so far) and it would be just as likely to score late as concede (whatever it feels like when we are watching)

[pinewalker]

Eddies Garden - the house with the St George flag.
I don't know who lives there but the garden must have eddies of wind to keep the flag stretched in the direction of The Plough during the game while Frakey said the wind on the pitch was blowing towards Collingwood Rd.
The real reason for Orient's dominance of possession in the second half was our midfield, Harry and Craig especially, dropped 10 yards back from their first half positions. In the second half, when a Sutton player went to clear the ball in our area from one of Orient's long throws or corners and looked upfield he had one player to aim at Ritchie / Omar. Those long balls upfield the defence won 3/4 of the time and played it short to Orient's energetic midfielders. If Sutton players on the ball had more options - a winger out wide or a short pass forward to Harry or Craig we would have retained possession better and probably created another chance.