Latics defeated at Orient

Athletic striker Jonathan Forte is beaten to the ball by Alex Cisak.

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UPDATED: And with more pictures.

Leyton Orient 3, Athletic 0

LEGEND has it that American casinos of old used to employ unfortunate individuals known as 'coolers', people reputed to be so utterly unlucky that ill-fortune infected the air around them.

Athletic appear to have the opposite effect. Any side severely down on their luck — with the worst home record in the league, say — suddenly and mysteriously finds themselves quids-in when rubbing up against Lee Johnson’s easy-beats.

For teams face-down in the league gutter, Athletic continue to be the hottest ticket in town. Three unanswered goals may have been harsh here, but it extends Athletic’s terrible record against the division’s strugglers.

See Crewe (2-1 with 10 men), Yeovil (thrashed 4-0) and Colchester (1-0). And that’s just the home games.

Of the bottom six, Athletic have beaten only Coventry and that's a record nowhere near good enough for a side with top-six ambitions. Athletic’s extraordinarily limp first-half here suggests a side that doesn’t believe they can get there anyway.

Orient manager Fabio Liverani has his post-match press conferences translated from Italian into English by his goalkeeping coach. Something was lost in Athletic's translation from training field to pitch on Saturday.

Rhys Turner was a passenger on the right flank and on the opposite side Dominic Poleon barely had any effect on the game either.

Athletic simply couldn’t retain the ball in the final third and when they did get into good positions through Joseph Mills and stand-out Carl Winchester, the final pass was missing.

Orient, sharper of thought, took control from the start. Johnson’s hesitant side, badly missing the drive of Mike Jones, couldn’t catch a cold.

Liam Kelly hauled down Jobi McAnuff in the area and David Mooney confidently dispatched the penalty.

That came in the 25th minute, 15 minutes after George Elokobi had bundled into Mooney’s back and seen his appeal waved away. It certainly looked more of a penalty than that given to substitute Rhys Murphy in the second half.

Athletic explored dead ends in attack with regularity and it wasn’t until the 31st minute that Alex Cisak was forced into a save.

Athletic couldn’t get much worse. At least they gave their unfailingly loyal following some graft after the interval.

Four minutes in, Cisak had to claw the ball away from Forte after more neat play by Winchester, who also advanced to fire over from 20 yards.

Murphy’s hopeful glance to the referee as he crumpled to the floor under minimal contact was answered with a penalty, but Forte’s weak effort was too close to Cisak. Liam Kelly had a difficult angle on the follow-up but should have scored, not hit the crossbar.

It was that sort of a day for Athletic. Forte and Poleon snatched at shots from areas of promise and at the other end, Chris Dagnall miscontrolled twice when he could have put the game to bed.

Jay Simpson rounded off the scoring in the fifth minute of added time by sliding the ball beyond Kean to compound the misery.

This chastening defeat came against a club in the midst of a full-blown crisis on and off the pitch. It was only a third win in 16 home league games for Orient, whose campaign to date has been an embarrassment.

It's the worst run of results of any of the 72 clubs in the Football League. But Athletic, insipid from the off, couldn't compete.

Only the easily-pleased will consider that to be a satisfactory state of affairs.