Stevenage fell to a 3-0 defeat at home to Leyton Orient on Saturday as goals from Sotiriou (2) and Cisse sent the travelling visitors back to East London with all three points...
After Boro’s bright start to the game, it was the away side that went in front with their first chance at Paul Farman’s goal. Things went from bad to worst in the second half as two goals in the space of a few minutes meant for another difficult afternoon at The Lamex Staium.
Graham Westley made three changes to the midweek defeat away at Grimsby Town. David Parkhouse, Terence Vancooten and Dean Parrett replaced Simeon Jackson, Luther James-Wildin and Tyler Denton.
Stevenage started the afternoon as a team full of confidence in their approach to the game, with fast attacking movement and direct passing looking to stretch the opposition anytime they got the ball forward.
Boro had two clear-cut chances in the opening ten minutes when Parrett, who was on set-piece duties, found Jake Cassidy alone at the near post from a corner, but the striker just headed over in what could have been the perfect start for the home fans. Moments later, Carter, who was playing in-behind strikers Cassidy and Parkhouse, saw his low driven shot turned around for a corner by keeper Lawrence Vigouroux which was arrowing into the bottom left-hand corner.
With 20 minutes played, Cassidy surged into the Orient box and looked likely to grab the first goal, until his left-footed shot rolled into the path of Vigouroux. Minutes later, Boro were caught on the counter-attack and with their first shot on target, Ruel Sotiriou rattled his effort past Paul Farman to make it 1-0.
Stevenage replied with chances of their own as the atmosphere started to crank up around The Lamex Stadium. Charlie Lakin unleashed a shot from outside the area which moved in the air, and almost wrong footed the O’s keeper, before Parkhouse had Vigouroux scrambling across his goal to keep the away side ahead.
One minute was shown for added time as Parrett lined up a free-kick just over 20 yards from goal, but his strike hit the wall and deflected over the bar, as Orient going into the break on the right side of the score-line.
Boro started the second-half where they left off the first, with the majority of possession whilst looking to put Orient on the backfoot. Ben Nugent almost caught out the O’s keeper with a looping header from Parrett’s corner that almost found the back of the net inside the first five minutes of the restart.
But for all of Boro’s possession, it was the away side that went 3-0 up in the blink of an eye just after the hour mark. Josh Wright’s freekick was whipped in with conviction, allowing Ouesseynou Cisse at the back post to double their lead and shortly after, Sotiriou was able to bag his brace as Farman was caught out at his near post from a long-range effort.
Graham Westley then rang the changes to try and turn the team’s fortunes around, as Dan Kemp made his league debut replacing David Parkhouse, Joe Leesley replaced Terence Vancooten and Simeon Jackson came on for Captain Scott Cuthbert.
But the damage was already done as despite plenty of effort, a lack of quality was evident to all, as the score-line remained the same at the full-time whistle.