Disaster strikes as Dale produce their worst performance of the season to allow the East Londoners to hammer Dale at Spotland. In all honesty, Orient were full value for the win, and could well have increased it had they took all of their chances.
Dale produced their worst display of the season by some margin as they surrendered to an improving Leyton Orient side. Dale never looked like getting anything out of this game, and they got exactly what they deserved. Just when a top draw performance was needed to silence all the critics, Dale went and produced a spineless performance. Everything that has been good about this season was absent today. Defending was abysmal, their was no team spirit, passing frequently went astray, and the Dale players were second to everything.
This was always going to be a crucial match for Dale. People were starting to write off the season following the home leg defeat to Stoke. A victory, no matter how it was achieved, was an absolute necessity. Unfortunately, everything which could go wrong did. There were some blaming the officials, but that would let Dale off the hook.
Steve Parkin rang the changes with Sean McAuley returning as left back, Michael Holt getting his first start since October and no place in the squad for Clive Platt. There was even a place on the bench for the now recovered Graham Lancashire. In the Orient team were Dale favourite Ashley Bayes, and former Mansfield striker Iesydn Christie. Despite the sunshine, there was a very sparse looking crowd at Spotland, made all the more apparent by the empty Willbutts Lane terrace which stands awaiting construction.
The game began in disastrous circumstances for Dale. Within five minutes of the kick off, Dale found themselves one down conceding a goal not too dissimilar to the opener in Tuesday's Stoke match. Christie broke free of the Dale defence down the right hand side before firing the ball past Edwards.
If that wasn't bad enough, within minutes it could have been two. Again the pace of the Orient strikers were causing havoc in the Dale defence, and they were queuing up to finish it. The ball was spread wide to the right and the shot was put in beating Edwards, but fortunately the ball was cleared off the line acrobatically by one of the Dale defenders. This was one of the few things they managed to do right on a day when we were a shambles at the back.
At the other end, Ashley Bayes was untested. Holt and Ellis could do little to threaten the goal. An equaliser never looked on the cards. Bettney could not get past full back Joseph, and Flitcroft on the other side had one of his worst games for the club causing no problems at all. The one real effort that Dale had came courtesy of Tony Ellis, but he saw his goalbound effort blocked by the head of Dave Flitcroft!
After half an hour, Orient doubled their lead and it would be hard to say that they didn't deserve it. They had shown a lot more desire and spirit. Their pace was causing lots of problems, and Monington and Hill were not gelling together. They were being torn to pieces at the back, and Orient were looking capable of running up a rugby score. Perhaps with their kit resembling St.Helens, that would have been quite appropriate.
The second half saw a double substitution with Atkinson and Lancashire replacing Flitcroft and Holt, and it had the desired effect. For much of the opening stages, Dale were camped in the Orient half. Lancashire was showing no signs of his recent injury problems, and looked very lively. You got the feeling that if Dale could scrape one goal, then the contest would be very much open once again. Dale had the home defence under quite a bit of pressure and it looked like the half time talking to by Steve Parkin had the desired effect. Graham Lancashire came close to grabbing a comeback for Dale when he fired in an overhead kick which came very close.
Unfortunately for Dale, Orient went straight down the other end and scored. With the Dale defence claiming offside, Steve Watts broke through with acres of space faced with a one on one with Neil Edwards. Rather than try his luck against Edwards, he slipped the ball over to Christie who had a simple tap in at the far post to put them three up. Edwards and McAuley went mad and ran over to let the linesman know exactly what they thought of him. It was claimed that the linesman had raised his flag as Watts broke through, before putting it down not long after.
Dale made a bit of a fight of it when Tony Ellis pulled back a goal which eventually proved to be nothing more than a consolation. Hopes were raised that this might spark some sort of comeback, but this feeling didn't last for too long, when Orient made it four. Keith Hill was battling with Watts, as he allowed the ball to run out for a corner. The linesman raised his flag to indicate that Hill had fouled the striker that Orient signed following a competition in the Sun newspaper. Up stepped Matthew Lockwood, complete with mullet, and he curled the ball into the top corner with Edwards far from saving it to kill off any hopes of a comeback for Dale.
The game was then played out to the sight of Dale fans pouring out from all three sides of the ground. This was a dismal performance which was reminiscent of the Swansea performance at the end of last season which proved to be the final nail in Graham Barrow's coffin. The were a lot of question marks raised by this performance. It is far too soon to call time on the season, but this was a performance far below par and far worse than anything we have seen so far this season. On Tuesday, we were beaten by a far better side in Stoke. But in this game, we have made a team from the bottom half of the table look like world beaters. Leyton Orient did show signs which took them to Wembley in the Play offs last season, but they were there for the beating. Promotion will not be achieved unless teams like Orient must be beaten and beaten well. We looked far from capable of doing that. Today, the players looked downbeat, and incapable of producing the sort of form which took us top of the table earlier in the season. Please let this be just a blip!
Dale: Edwards, Evans, McAuley, Hill, Monington, Flitcroft (Atkinson), Jones, Peake, Bettney, Holt (Lancashire), Ellis.