Waltham Forest V Leyton Preview – 8/1/11
Tomorrow sees a massive six-pointer at the foot of the Ryman Division 1 North table when we take on Leyton. Given the progress Leyton made at the end of last season, and Forest’s respectable league position, no one would have really thought that either side would be once again in a relegation dogfight. However, the fact of the matter remains that just one point separates the two sides who occupy the bottom two places of the league table.
Both sides have recently changed their managers; we have replaced Tony Mercer with Wale Ojelabi, while Leyton replaced Wilson Frimpong with Gordon Boateng just over a month ago. Despite being in charge for this amount of time, Boateng has only managed to watch his Leyton side play once: on the 11th of December, when they lost 8-0 to title-chasing Needham Market. Wale Ojelabi’s only game in charge this season, also ended in a defeat: 4-1 at the hands of top spotted East Thurrock United.
Both managers have clearly seen that their squads are not good enough to avoid the drop and have acted swiftly to bring in a whole host of new faces. Boateng has brought in impressive names like Marvin Abrahams and Shane Mandogza, and has signed Adam Bolle from us. Ojelabi acted quickly to bring back several familiar faces to the club: Gbenga Sonuga, Luke Hornsley, Michael Filletti, Lukman Mojeed, Junior Luke and Joel Palmer, all who featured in last Saturday’s defeat. Hopefully after a couple more training sessions they are now back used to playing together and will be able to compete a bit better come tomorrow.
While a win for neither side will bring them out of the relegation places, it will take them a lot closer to Ilford, Redbridge and Tilbury who are hovering just above the danger zone at the half-way point of the season.
Bwin see the game as follows:
Forest Win: 11/10
Draw: 5/2
Leyton Win: 17/10
There will be live match updates on the club’s twitter stream if you are unable to make the match.
