Gillingham undone by fluent Os

David Mooney scores Orient's first goal of the game

Leyton Orient returned to form with a 5-1 thrashing of a lacklustre Gillingham side on Saturday afternoon at Brisbane Road. The match itself started, like every other match in the top five divisions, seven minutes later than usual as a mark of respect to the 96 Liverpool fans that had died at Hillsborough in 1989, but Orient seemed unaffected by the relative sombreness of the occasion. At the heart of what was an excellent first half performance by them was the quality and, at times, incisiveness of their passing, which enabled them to dominate play and helped to revive their main strikers, all of whom had been rather quiet for several games. 

Orient’s first goal came following a great passing move down the left-side that found Everton loanee John Lundstram, who’s beautifully weighted through ball gave David Mooney what looked like a tight angle to shoot. But shoot he did, and drilled his shot past former O Stuart Nelson to score his 19th goal of the season in all competitions. With the goal timed at just five minutes, Gillingham fans and players must’ve been expecting a long day at the office. However, even the most optimistic Orient fan couldn’t have envisaged what was about to happen.

 A few minutes later Orient left-back Elliot Omozusi received the ball from Lundstram, and advanced into the Gillingham penalty area before finding Mooney. The Irishman managed to turn 2 Gillingham defenders and laid the ball off to Dean Cox, who scored his 14th goal of the season with a right footed 20-yard pile-driver which flew into the corner of the net.

And it was Cox switching the play to Moses Odubajo that set up the third of the afternoon. The young wide man, who has been scouted by Tottenham recently, baffled Gills left-back Joe Martin before firing in a powerful cross for Kevin Lisbie, who used the power from the cross to head home past Nelson, giving the Gillingham bench plenty to consider. Orient, on the other hand, were flying high and scored again about 30 seconds later.

 Almost straight from the restart, dawdling by right-back Elliott Hewitt allowed Lisbie to knick the ball from the young Welshman, before heading straight for the Gillingham penalty. As Lisbie cut in from the left, his strike partner Mooney anticipated his intentions perfectly, latching onto a perfectly weighted squared pass to bag his 20th goal of the season. The striker is currently having his best season in England and, despite inconsistent form recently, is only two more goals away from 20 league goals. Gillingham fans were probably wishing that they had a striker of Mooney’s calibre as the goal prompted a notable exodus from the visiting supporters' stand for some early refreshments. Those who weren’t heading for drinks were chanting “We want our money back”, which was justified considering Orient’s whirlwind 35 minutes. Gillingham hardly posed a threat all half and were thankful that Orient didn’t score again.

The second half was a more cagey affair, but with 12 minutes to go, after a Gillingham corner was cleared by Lundstram, Lisbie knocked the ball down 40 yards out for Mooney’s replacement Chris Dagnall. Dagnall then ran forward to the edge of the Gillingham penalty area, with both Jake Hessenthaler and Adam Barrett desperately trying to usher him to a safe area. Just as it began to look as if Dagnall’s chance to score had gone, he managed to slot the ball between the two defenders and past Nelson for goal number five. The goal itself led to a great number of Gills fans heading for the turnstiles. But those who stayed were to witness a late consolation.

Joe Martin’s cross from the left came all the way to Craig Fagin, whose volley hit defender Mathieu Baudry, who was trying to clear the ball, before finding the net. The Gillingham fans that had stayed then began ironic chants of “Easy, Easy, Easy”, which was greeted by laughter from around the ground. But the damage had already been done and Orient fans could go home happy with the result.

Man of the Match: There were several really good performances from Orient players in the game and picking a single man of the match isn’t easy. However, Orient’s domination of most of the game was made possible by the excellent central midfield pairing of Romain Vincelot and John Lundstram pulling a lot of the strings. Vincelot looked back to his best, but Lundstram showed why Everton may need him in a few years’ time. His tackling was spot on, his passing was top notch, and even experienced players like Nathan Clarke were looking for the Liverpudlian at times which just shows how good this young man is. My man of the match award therefore goes to John Lundstram.