With this being another local away game, the three SussexBaggies decided to make the journey into east London for this Carling Cup tie. Leaving Sussex at 3pm, we had arrived and parked up by 5.15pm, giving us easily enough time to collect the tickets we had reserved earlier in the day from the away ticket office.
Unfortunately, the Leyton Orient stewards seemed to be finding it very difficult to give the Albion fans gathering outside the ticket office near the away entrance a conclusive answer as to whether or not it was even going to open. Thankfully, it finally did open just after 6.30pm and we were then able to make our way into the ground.
Team
Unsurprisingly, Roberto Di Matteo changed all eleven players from our victory over Sunderland at the weekend. Boaz Myhill replaced Scott Carson in goal, the back-four was made up of Gianni Zuiverloon, Pablo Ibanez, Leon Barnett and Nicky Shorey, the five midfielders were Steven Reid, who was captain for the night, debutant Sam Mantom, Luke Moore, Giles Barnes and Simon Cox, with Roman Bednar playing up front on his own.
First half
As you would expect from players who have never played alongside each other before, we started quite slowly, with our only effort in the opening exchanges being a shot from Giles Barnes which was comfortably saved by Jamie Jones in the host’s goal.
It was Leyton Orient who had the first real chance of the game, with Myhill forced into a fine one-handed save to turn Scott McGleish's shot from the edge of the penalty area wide after the ball fell to him in space.
We soon began to find our feet, though, and after a slow start, Mantom began getting more involved in the game and showing the touches which have led to regular watchers of the youth team to hail him as a very exciting prospect for the future. Nothing he did last night will have changed this view, with a solid performance in central midfield suggesting that he has a bright future ahead of him.
At this stage, we were having a lot of possession in and around their penalty area, but were struggling to convert this possession into clear-cut goal-scoring chances. Moore had two shots comfortably saved by Jones and Bednar saw a shot from the edge of the area go comfortably over the bar.
After 29 minutes, this spell of pressure finally resulted in a goal for the Albion. The goal came from Ibanez who glanced home a superb in-swinging free-kick from the left-hand side which was delivered by Mantom. The 626 Albion supporters who made the journey to the game will have been delighted to see us take the lead, and even more pleased that the architect of the goal was a homegrown youngster.
Two minutes later, we nearly doubled our lead, with Cox controlling the ball on his chest and sending a volley from the edge of the area just over the bar.
The last 15 minutes of the first half were fairly quiet, as we comfortably went into the break with a deserved lead after a thoroughly professional performance in the opening 45 minutes against a Leyton Orient side who were proving themselves to be no pushovers.
After the break
Despite having much of the possession in the first half, we started the second half on the back foot with the hosts being galvanised by two half-time substitutions. Having said that, they still lacked any cutting edge and the opening 20 minutes of the second half was probably the quietest period in the game.
After 64 minutes, they should probably have been level, as McGleish sent a free header from 12 yards out wide of the upright when he should have at least hit the target for the hosts.
The introduction of Chris Wood gave us a bit more of an attacking threat, as Bednar had done very little to stake a claim for a starting place against Liverpool during his time on the pitch. Wood, however, played with the enthusiasm which made him so popular last season, and it was from his knockdown that Cox sliced a half-volley wide from 15 yards when he probably should have scored.
The Albion supporters, who had been in fine voice all night, began to get anxious as Leyton Orient had more and more possession in and around our penalty area. They very nearly equalised once more, when McGleish's header from a Dean Cox cross was comfortably claimed by the impressive Myhill.
Despite substitute Marek Cech going off injured, Albion finished the game strongly and scored a deserved second goal in injury time. Wood was the scorer, as he used his power to beat two defenders before sending a powerful shot through the legs of Jones from a tight angle.
On reflection
I don't think we could have really asked for much more from the game, especially when you consider the number of players featuring who have played very little first-team football recently. However, at times during the second half, our performance became slightly disjointed and I think a better side than Leyton Orient would probably have punished us, taking the game into extra-time.
I don't think there are too many players who can honestly say that they deserve to start at Liverpool based on their performance last night. None of them played especially poorly, but only a handful of players put in performances which showed them to be anywhere near good enough to face a side as good as Liverpool.
My man-of-the-match from last night would be Reid. He was our captain for the night and produced a very good performance in the holding role, with his excellent passing and strong tackling setting the tone for a professional team performance. Mantom received man-of-the-match on the official website and will probably be mentioned in a number of papers for his impressive debut. But, he is by no means the finished article and, although I don't want to criticise him, he did get knocked off the ball a bit too easily and would have struggled had Reid not been playing alongside him. Other impressive performances came from Ibanez and Wood.
This capped off an excellent day for me after receiving my GCSE results in the morning. The only thing that threatened to put a dampener on the day was getting stuck in east London after the game when our Sat-Nav refused to acknowledge that the Blackwall Tunnel was shut! After driving around in circles for 15 minutes, we finally returned home just before midnight, safe in the knowledge that Albion were through to the next round of the Carling Cup.
Boing Boing!