More Haste, Less Speed
Every summer, hungry mouths need feeding - Leyton Laureate considers whether we really are any slower than usual in bringing home the bacon this year
Well played, Leyton Orient Director of Football Scott Mitchell.
There I was, listening to Mitchell’s interview on the club’s website on Wednesday, when he said things like:
“First and foremost, we appreciate it can take a bit of time, and there’s not three signings through the door, but we need to make sure we filter through those players to make sure they’re the right fit for us.”
“There’s no point jumping into it and regretting signing a player just for the sake of it. You know, we’ve got to really do the due diligence to make sure that they’re the right fit for us.”
“Listen, it’s a World Cup year, so we have to factor that in. Clubs aren’t going to be as willing to let players go out. Believe it or not, that does affect us, even at the League One level.”
It felt like, for all the talk of wanting to do our transfer business faster, we were being told to settle in and be patient.
And then bam, barely 24 hours later, we got hit with our first signing of the summer: winger Tony Springett from Norwich City.
Talk about underpromising and overdelivering. The transfer window doesn’t even officially open until June 15!
If this is a sign of things to come, it is a massive departure from our modus operandi of the past few years.
Last summer, the transfer window opened for 10 days from June 1-10 to accommodate the Club World Cup and then reopened on June 16. Leyton Orient, coming off a near promotion to the Championship, didn’t sign its first player until Killian Cahill was announced on June 24.
In the summer of 2024, when the window began on June 14, Sonny Perkins was our first signing on June 27, coming on loan from Leeds.
In 2023, our first season in League One, Leyton Orient signed Max Sanders on June 21, a week after the window opened on June 14.
Slow signings have been a recurring source of frustration for manager Richie Wellens, as evidenced in his end-of-season scorched earth rant. Dithering on targets has allowed other clubs to swoop in on our first choices, he has said, and left Orient scouring the bargain bin to fill out the squad.
Of course, it’s not necessarily how you start the transfer window, and not even necessarily how you finish.
Some of our best signings have come during the middle doldrums of the summer. Ethan Galbraith and Dan Agyei were both signed on June 29, 2023 – 15 days after the transfer window opened. Aaron Connolly signed for Orient last July 7, several weeks into the window.
The coming weeks will tell how Mitchell’s influence on our recruitment process is coming along. In his interview on the club website, he said his role was to “make sure that our processes are tight” and to “put processes in place to make sure the club is getting the best out of ourselves.”
While the immediate focus is on revamping the current squad, there is a long-term vision to implement a recruitment philosophy across the club, he said.
In the summer of 2022, Wellens’ first transfer window as manager of Orient, Theo Archibald was signed on June 8, two days before the window officially opened, as his loan was converted into a permanent buy. It is the only time in Orient’s recent history that a player has been announced ahead of the window starting.
The next signing that summer wouldn’t be until George Moncur joined three weeks after Archibald, followed a day later by Anthony Georgiou. A lot of time to wait, and not the most inspiring of signings, but Orient would go on to win League Two that season.
Hopefully a similar result can be achieved this season, with Springett arriving in E10 ahead of the window’s opening.
A lot of squad building still to go, but the Mitchell era is off to a running start.
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