At the start of the season the odds on Leicester City being joint top of the Premier League at the beginning of December would have been long for sure.

An even longer bet however would have been that the leading league scorer in all four divisions at the same time would hail from Leyton Orient.

Brisbane Road as we all know has never exactly been a hot bed of prolific goalscorers – we’re more used to Plasmati and Henderson than Shearer and Lineker – so the performance of Jay Simpson has been something of a revelation to all of us.

Already having bagged 15 in the Fourth Division, our man is on track to become the first ‘O’ since ‘Saint’ Peter Kitchen in 1977-78 to notch 20 in a league season which would be a wonderful achievement.

There are comparisons with that year back in the 70s in that then Kitch had a big man up front to do a lot of the hard graft and dirty work in Joe Mayo, whereas in 2015-2016 Simmo has Olly Palmer working in a similar way up front.

Neither Mayo then nor Palmer now will bag many goals but the work they did then and do now is vital for their strike partner. The 77-78 season of course, brought an FA Cup semi-final appearance, so Scunthorpe beware on Saturday if history is to repeat itself again some 37 years on.

Simpson has certainly been our player of the season so far (despite a spirited challenge from Alan Dunne) and nice as it would be to go to Wembley for a cup semi, promotion of course is the only real thing that matters this time around.

We’re handily positioned in eighth place after 20 matches, so going up is certainly not out of the question. Hendon, despite the feelings of certain supporters, appears to be doing an OK job in my opinion, although his reluctance to increase the size of the squad with loan signings, especially after a few key injuries you have to find frustrating.

Losing Dean Cox, one of the best players not just at our club but in the whole division was a terrible piece of luck, though with ‘the mystery of the missing McAnuff’ seemingly now resolved it could be that we’ve acquired another experienced midfielder that we didn’t have at the season’s start with Jobi.

With Sammy Moore, Jack Payne, Bradley Pritchard and Lloyd James battling for midfield places we don’t seem badly placed in that area, the only concern being that they are not scoring enough, placing more strain on Simpson.

If they can all stay fit (and not have the need for any paternity leave) they are all decent players at our level however and I’m sure the goals will eventually arrive. Simpson aside, our best player in my opinion this year has been Alex Cisak, so a key factor in our performance in the second half of the campaign will be keeping him fit and hoping he doesn’t have too many trips to the other side of the world for any meaningless Australian friendlies.

Whilst it must be reassuring for our squad to know that should they all put in a sub standard performance, they can look forward to a nice four day stay at a luxury local hotel, away from their nagging wives and their noisy kids, I hope there is no need for Mr Becchetti to put his hand in his pocket again this season to pay a hefty hotel bill. If there is any spare money around maybe he could use it to pay off Alan Dunne’s contract.

Saturday’s performance will not go down as one of our better ones this season and was pretty disappointing having just held the league leaders, but at the end of the season we might look back on it as a valuable point.

Indeed bearing in mind we managed just one shot on target all game, and the referee was virtually a 12th man for the Dons, to come away with anything was remarkable. And there was another wonderful Simpson strike to savour, as well as a world class save from the Aussie, so despite unrest among certain sections of the crowd it was not all doom and gloom.

It’s cup time again and I’m quite sure the O’s fans will give Scunthorpe’s Darius Henderson a nice warm welcome if he plays in much the same way that they will give last Saturday’s ref a decent reception if he returns to officiate one of our games in the future.

I’m looking forward to a comfortable win, and a third round draw against Arsenal on Monday, so that Simmo can show the Gooners what a mistake it was to get rid of him a few years ago. As always, being an O’s fan we can but live in hope.

Up the O’s.