Leyton Orient have gone from fearing for their Football League future to the top of League Two in six months; in an exclusive interview with Sky Sports, Richie Wellens reveals how they did it and why he is better manager for his experiences with Salford and Doncaster…
Monday 12 September 2022 16:50, UK
Leyton Orient are unbeaten and top of League Two. It is an astonishing turnaround for a club that was four points above the relegation zone and without a win in three months and 13 games when Richie Wellens arrived in March.
Not only did Wellens reverse the trajectory immediately, showing promotion form in going five unbeaten and winning seven of the final 11 games of last season, he has carried that on into the current campaign. It is six wins from seven. Belief is back.
"Confidence can change very quickly," Wellens tells Sky Sports.
"One win can reinvent everybody. I think that is what happened."
But how did he do it?
"I realised quickly what we had in the building," he explains. "We had goals in the team. The problems were off the ball. So we worked in those first two or three weeks just on being good off the ball, knowing that we had people in the team who would score anyway."
The momentum has continued and there is a logic to that. Once safety was assured, he was able to "play with the team a bit" in those final games when the results did not matter quite so much. "It gave me valuable information going forward," he adds.
The recruitment in the summer was spot on.
Orient kept key players and added quality too. They used the loan market well to bring in young Queens Park Rangers forward Charlie Kelman. He has three goals and two assists already. "I would not swap my attacking players for any in the league," he says.
"You want players who fit your style and the budget to afford them. Without that, you end up signing players who the manager does not want. Every player is someone I wanted. It was data-driven too, but the final decision was mine and they all fit my philosophy."
Wellens went with a possession game at Swindon and that is still in his mind. "If you play 10-yard passes the odds of giving it away are small. If you go to 20 yards it is more of a risk. If you go 60 yards to the striker you are going to be giving the ball away a lot."
But he want to play to the team's strengths too.
"Every time we attack we look like scoring so I don't want to take that away from us by passing it around the back and to the goalkeeper. We do not want to do that. We want to play through the lines quickly and attack. We need to get the balance right."
It has been a difficult two years for Wellens since winning League Two with Swindon in 2020, so to see him flourishing again is encouraging. Sacked by Salford City just days after winning the EFL Trophy, his subsequent spell at Doncaster Rovers was a struggle.
There is some regret in leaving Swindon to drop down a division for Salford but Covid-19 had complicated things there. "It affected Swindon hugely. That put me in a tricky predicament. But, in hindsight, I made the wrong decision in going to Salford."
At Doncaster, there were extenuating circumstances. "To be honest, it was a bit of a car crash. When we went in, the recruitment was behind. We had a friendly at Bradford and it was 17 trialists. The injury situation was the worst I have ever seen."
But he also accepts that he is a better manager now than he was then. He has learned from the negative experiences, and while this is a familiar claim, in this instance he has tangible reasons for making it. Wellens has since completed his UEFA Pro Licence, for example.
"You come out of that a better coach, manager and person," he says.
"It was really tough doing that while I was in a job but I completed it earlier this year and I just think I am an all-round better manager and communicator. At my previous clubs, especially Salford, little things that I did not like would manifest inside me.
"If I was not happy with something, I would have a moan to my staff and it might bring them down and I would never get to the bottom of the problem. I would not get it out. Managing upwards is a massive improvement of mine. My relationships are better now."
Leyton Orient are the beneficiaries of a more mature approach.
"I have evolved as a manager. When I started I thought it was all about man-management and tactics. Now I take one session a week the day before the game. I will do the tactics and the shape. Other than that I will delegate the sessions and trust the medical staff."
There is praise for Dr Ketan Patel, head of performance and medicine. "Every time there is an injury, he will diagnose it quickly, put a timescale on it, always brings them back to that timescale or even earlier, and when they come back they never break down."
He is grateful for his coaches Paul Terry and Matt Harrold as well as his analyst Joe Austin. "We drink together, we have meals together, we have darts competitions in our office. I am surrounded by good people. I could not wish to work alongside better."
It helps to explain why he sees the manager of the month award for August as a team effort. "This award should not be manager of the month, it should be management of the month." What supporters want to know is how far all this might take them.
"It is a good start but that is all it is," says Wellens.
"I was asked before the season what my aims were and the lazy answer was promotion. But I just wanted to see a style of play. You can win games and not see that. When I went to Salford, we won five of the first eight games but they were just 50-50 games.
"There was no thought process behind it. We would go up and just sit back and defend which is not what I wanted to do. So, as long as I saw performances improve and a better outcome than last season, that was the aim. We are on course for that.
"This team has more ways of winning than my Swindon team. At Swindon, we had to be better than the opposition and if plan A was not working we had to get better at plan A. The players at Leyton Orient are adaptable. We can play power football too.
"I resonate with my team. If you sat me down and asked me what I want to see from my team, I sit there on a Tuesday or a Saturday and I like what I see. I see 11 lads putting everything into it and a bench with players who are right behind them.
"They press high up, the intensity is good and the reactions are good. There is no throwing up your arms. The body language is good. There are no egos. And when we get the ball we work on certain patterns and we are enjoying the way we are playing."
Everyone, it seems, is enjoying Leyton Orient right now.
