Cod Almighty | Match Stats

Saturday 20 August 2016

Division 4

Grimsby Town 1 Vose (90+2)

Leyton Orient 2 Kelly (58), Palmer (77)

Attendance: 4991 (347 away fans)

He ran around a lot. He tried a lot. He didn't achieve a lot but the employee of the week gift vouchers (redeemable only in the club shop on the second Thursday of every third month) went to Ashley Chambers. He tried.

Old head, old legs, same old story.

"Parts of it remind me of last season in terms of us going 10 games without keeping a clean sheet then, and I know we've done that once this season but last year we were conceding goals that we said were more down to individual errors than anything blatantly wrong collectively and that's certainly the case today."

More on this

Nothing. Their assistant gaffer says this though.

Four games, four points tossed away already through unprofessional slackery. The centre of the defence was permanently on the edge of a nervous breakdown, despite having virtually nothing to do. Fortunate in the first half to avoid calamity with Gowling's double-cack-footed clearances, the second brought two amateur errors and two goals. And the stuffing well and truly fell out of the cuddly toy.

Bogle and Jackson have no alchemy or mutual attraction, while Chambers was a willing worker without inducing any fear. Summerfield was mechanical and functional, leaving Disley to roam the savannah seeking carrion to feast upon.

There was no magic, no je ne sais quoi, just men trying their best. There wasn't much to beat and Town managed to avoid beating any eggs.

Town: almost OK, mostly, but not quite. Still two very important pieces missing from the jigsaw.

Artless, colourless and utterly, utterly mundane. Orient did, and were, nothing. These harmless passers-by happily accepted the bottle of Martini and prawn crackers thrust upon them by the giddy partygoers.

The Snookerloopians' left-back, Semedo, was absolutely terrible; all hair flair but no care for defending. They relied heavily on the commanding colossus that was Cisak, their Austrapolian shot-stopper. Everyone else? Wore shirts, shorts, socks and boots while moving around a bit.

You could see how they were supposed to play: arch-typically Hessenthalerian hassling, hustling and bustling. These Os have a hole in the middle but had the gumption to pick up the fivers as they fluttered down the street.

Orient: just coloured shirts in the background. If this lot are promotion fodder then this league is appalling.

Sour milk in their tea: Grimsby 'til they score.

Mr G Salisbury (Lancs)

An old face and the same old story. The man is still not good enough, chickening out of big decisions (Disley's penalty box plunge was one thing or the other, not neither) and inverting logic and proportion (Chambers' booking for retrieving the ball for a time waster). He'd be par for the course in the Bananarama and fit for caddying down the local pitch and putt: 5.564.

They came; they yawned; they conquered.

In a word: hari-kiri