How do you improve upon near perfection? That’s the question Richie Wellens and the Leyton Orient transfer committee will be asking themselves as they approach the advent of the January transfer window.
With the O’s sitting pretty at the top of League Two, natural instinct would suggest to keep hold of what you’ve got.
It’s probably a sign of how well things are going for Orient at the moment that a major concern recently hasn’t been related to results on the field or even directly to the club itself.
Instead, it involves a season ending injury for Ipswich midfielder Dom Ball which has set alarm bells ringing about a potential recall for star loanee Idris El Mizouni by the Tractor Boys.
It’s clear this has been a potential area of concern amongst the O’s hierarchy with Director of Football Martin Ling commenting earlier in the season: “We would hope that no-one calls anyone back, the second and third result I look for every week is QPR’s and Ipswich’s in case either want (Charlie) Kelman or El Mizouni back.”
It’s also been a question put to Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna, with the former Manchester United assistant telling The East Anglian Daily Times: “It was really important for him to go and get games after a couple of seasons of not playing too much.
“I don’t think his last couple of loan moves had worked out quite as he wanted for different reasons. So it was really important at this stage of his career to go and get a proper run in central midfield.”
Those quotes should give hope that El Mizouni won’t be recalled, because as influential as the Tunisian has been to Orient’s record breaking start, it seems, with a year still to go on his current Ipswich deal, McKenna is prioritising regular game time with it being a big ask for the 22-year-old to break into Ipswich’s table-topping starting XI.
Interestingly, speaking after the victory over Bradford, Orient’s Head Coach refused to rule out further investment this month.
“There’s probably around four or five options you can do in this situation. I know that because I’ve been in this situation as a player as well as a manager”, Wellens said.
“One of them is to invest heavily with players we can take forward next year and there’s probably two or three other options.”
The idea of bolstering the squad with League One ready talent may risk upsetting the balance of a successful side. However, it is also a mouth-watering prospect given what Wellens was able to do at the back end of last season in terms of bedding players into his system.
READ MORE: Martin Ling – “Leyton Orient are a good League One club and we need to get back to being that”
After safety was swiftly confirmed following the 42-year-old’s arrival, Wellens spoke of switching his focus from results to testing players out and getting them adapted to his style of play in the final games of the season.
It’s a method that’s clearly borne fruit this season with the O’s continuing to streak away at the top of the table and it could be one they revisit in January in order to aid their potential start in League One.
One player who will certainly be available to boost the ranks come January 1st is Harry Smith after the forward cut short his own loan spell at Exeter in October after struggling to settle in the area.
Having already played for two EFL clubs this campaign, Smith has been training with the squad since then and is tied to the O’s if he wants to play league football this season, giving Wellens the option of a genuine Plan B from the bench.
Although he will need his side to adapt more to Smith’s target man presence than they did earlier in the campaign.
Speaking after August’s 1-1 draw with Swindon Town, Wellens expressed his displeasure in one of Smith’s last appearances for the club before he departed for Devon on deadline day.
“In the last 15 minutes we went too long,” the O’s boss said. “We brought Harry Smith on because we’ve got so much possession and we can get into areas where we can put it into the box and use Harry’s physical threat.
“But we ended up going too long and turned the game into a basketball match.”
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Ultimately, Orient find themselves in an extremely strong position as January approaches and Wellens is focused on keeping this special group of players together.
“If you said to me that January 31st is over and we’ve renewed all our contracts and kept exactly the same squad then I’ll be happy,” Orient’s Head Coach remarked last weekend.
You suspect that if he manages that over the next month or so then this season should culminate in success.