“When I do interviews, I’m honest and authentic. I’ll say what I think.”
The Athletic’s ears have pricked up. Leyton Orient head coach Richie Wellens is not one to keep his opinions to himself and that usually makes for an interesting article.
“You look at some people, they’re just boring. We can all do media training and end up like the rest of them, just saying cliches. What’s the point of that? Although it does get me into trouble.”
Well yes, there is plenty of evidence for that last bit. Wellens is watching Orient’s matches from the stands right now because he was getting too emotional over refereeing decisions and barking at fourth officials.
And in recent days, he’s remarked about Tottenham Hotspur counterpart Ange Postecoglou using injuries as an excuse (this despite Orient currently having two Spurs loanees, Jamie Donley and Josh Keeley, in their team).
“It was a tongue-in-cheek comment which, when you take the back end of it and the short version, it doesn’t sound good,” Wellens, who has apologised and attempted to contact Postecoglou directly, says. “Me, it’s water off a duck’s back. Our supporters love the honesty, I think? It’s a breath of fresh air.”
Whatever Wellens is saying to his players, though, is clearly working.
Orient are one of the form teams in the country, with a run of nine wins in 11 matches propelling the east Londoners from 21st to sixth in League One, English football’s third tier.
And after knocking Championship side Derby County out in the FA Cup’s third round, this weekend Wellens, a Manchester United fan, welcomes Manchester City and manager Pep Guardiola to Brisbane Road for what on paper is a classic cup pairing.
Wellens taking training before Orient’s meeting with Manchester City (Kynan Foster/Leyton Orient)
What Wellens says to Guardiola will have to wait until the game tomorrow afternoon, but here is what he said after welcoming The Athletic into his Essex home on the eve of one of the biggest matches of his career.
Wellens was a talented midfielder with a combative edge who spent most of his career in the Championship or League One, with teams including Leicester City, Blackpool and Doncaster Rovers.
As a manager, if you are not a keen watcher of lower-league football, you may only remember him from a short-lived but high-profile stint with Salford City, when he felt at the time like he was not being listened to by the club’s “Class of 92” owners (Wellens started his career with Manchester United in the late 1990s) but admits now that he was learning on the job.
Aged 44, he has never managed in the Premier League but, with two promotions from League Two on his CV and now chasing another from League One with Orient, he is clear about his ambitions.
“I want to work in the Premier League,” he says. “If you’re a player or a manager and that’s not your ambition, I’m not sure why you’d do it.
“The only realistic step for me (to do that) is to get promoted via the Championship (rather than being hired by a top-flight club), like Kieran McKenna (Ipswich Town’s manager), like Sean Dyche (in his Burnley days).
“We have a small chance of getting into the Championship with Leyton Orient. Further down the line, I want to work at a club that can compete in the Championship and do well in it.”
It has been an 11-year about-turn for Orient, who last challenged at the top end of League One in 2013-14 before plummeting down to the National League (tier five) and climbing back up again, with the help of chairman and lifelong fan Nigel Travis (who has held senior roles at Dunkin’ Donuts, Papa John’s and Abercrombie & Fitch). Travis travels over from the United States for some matches and avidly follows those he misses on the club’s Orient Live streaming service.
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League One has a different financial landscape now, and Orient know their place when it comes to the transfer market.
The Gaughan Group Stadium at Brisbane Road will host Premier League champions City in the fourth round of the FA Cup (Paul Harding/Getty Images)
“We’re dealing with Bolton and Charlton, directly below us (in the table), who get 20,000 every week and have a significantly higher wage bill,” Wellens says.
“But it’s brilliant for a club like Leyton Orient to be mentioned in the same breath. I embrace the challenge. Everyone’s jealous of Wrexham and say it’s a Hollywood story in terms of being the underdog; well, it’s not an underdog story (because of the money being spent there) but so what? They’re embracing it, buying players and it’s brilliant.
“The difference between (league leaders) Birmingham and Leyton Orient? Well, they spent £15million on a player (Jay Stansfield), 25 per cent of that is our total wage bill.
“We missed out on signing a player who lived local, around us. Wrexham offered him three times what we could pay for him.”
Orient’s way is to sign youngsters who have maybe had a big move elsewhere that hasn’t worked out, or take young talents on loan or who have been released, such as midfielder Ethan Galbraith, who left Manchester United in 2023 at age 22, almost four years after his one first-team appearance for the club as an 88th-minute substitute, or this season’s eight-goal top scorer Charlie Kelman, a 23-year-old English-born former USMNT youth international who is on loan from Queens Park Rangers of the Championship.
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“We try and play a style of football that players will enjoy,” Wellens says as The Athletic joins him in the car on the short commute from the training ground in Chigwell, on the north-east outskirts of London, to the new family home. “I have non-negotiables about pressing and intensity, but when they’re on the ball, they have freedom to express themselves.”
“The run that Man City are on and the run we’re on… it might go in our favour — I think sometimes big clubs think it’s a given against a lower league club.”
No, that is not Wellens’ brutal honesty coming to the fore by talking down City with potentially inflammatory comments ahead of the big tie… that’s his wife Nicola, who will also be there on Saturday.
“Yeah, I’ve never seen that with Pep,” Wellens interjects.
“No, not with Pep, but maybe naturally in players’ minds…” Nicola suggests.
“Pep was winning 6-0 against Salford (of League Two, in the third round) and he wasn’t saying, ‘Pass it around the back’, he’s bringing lads on for more, he’s ruthless, and they won 8-0,” Wellens says.
“No, but maybe in players’ minds…” Nicola ponders.
“I don’t think he’d allow them to do that,” Wellens says.
This is a football household, Wellens’ fellow Manchester United fan spouse included. Son Charlie, 22, plays for Reading, another team in League One, his younger brother Alfie is in Orient’s academy (he was on the bench in the third round) and 13-year-old daughter Ruby is a supporter, too. Although she’ll have a job making the 12.15pm kick-off tomorrow as she’s got netball in the morning.
They all moved down to this part of London before Christmas, more than two years after Wellens got the Orient job.
Previously, the family had always kept their roots up in Manchester, with Wellens spending 40 hours a week on the road (setting off for training at 4am) and either staying in a hotel down south or driving home again after. Sometimes he would get the train and occasionally be accosted by travelling West Ham United fans (“They’re abusing me on the Tube, shouting, ‘Up the Os!’”).
He won the League Two title with Swindon Town, another long drive south from Manchester, five years ago despite that same laborious routine, but it is no surprise he is healthier, happier and not as tired now they have all made the move to the capital.
Alfie getting a scholarship at Orient was the deciding factor but the switch wasn’t without its complications. Wellens had to put an appeal out on X to help Ruby find a school in the area.
I’d like to thank everyone for there help in trying to find a local school for Ruby, the good news is she now has a school , your messages and support is much appreciated.
— Richie Wellens (@RichieWe11ens) November 6, 2024
“It’s all very new down south for us,” Nicola adds. “It’s not going to be forever in the football world. You don’t know where the next job is going to be.”
Wellens adds: “The average lifespan is 10 months. I signed a three-year deal in the summer, but that doesn’t mean for a minute that you’re going to be here for three years. You can sell your house, move down, buy a new house, pay all your stamp duty, get everything sorted and pay a fortune just to move and, two months later, you might be gone.”
What is Wellens like after a defeat, dare we ask?
“Typical sportsperson!,” Nicola laughs. “He tries to block it out, but he’s always analysing. We try and take his mind off it — we’ll all go to the gym on a Sunday, or watch a film, or go out and have a meal.
“We all love football so much. Charlie plays at Reading, Alfie at Orient, I love football, Ruby does too, so we take the hit together. It does impact us, if we’re watching (Orient lose) on telly or at the game, we’re all deflated. But when you get the wins, it’s worth it.”
They will all be there tomorrow, plus Wellens’ parents and brother. The rest of the family? They’ll be in the away end, including Wellens’ uncle Chris, who is such a diehard City fan he retired two years ago to focus on following them home and away, including in Europe.
The Wellens family, with Nicola third left in the dark coat and hat, away at Wigan this season (Simon O’Connor/Leyton Orient)
Most of the wider family are City blue, but Wellens is a staunch Red. The family have season tickets at Old Trafford and he has been in the away end for United’s matches at West Ham, Spurs and Arsenal this season.
“I don’t really get recognised a lot,” he says. “A lot of the hardcore United away fans are some of my old schoolmates. The away end has changed a lot though, they half don’t expect anything now and there’s an inevitability that they’re not going to win.
“It shows how far the club has been on a downward spiral in the last 10 years.”
Nicola chastises her husband for not being able to use the instant-hot-water tap in their new home. “He doesn’t often make a cup of tea, as you can probably tell.”
It’s time to make a brew and talk Pep.
Wellens has watched a couple of recent City away games, the defeats by Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain, for tips on how to exploit their weaknesses.
“The speed and the intensity when they win the ball back off City,” he says. “As a manager, you’re watching saying, ‘You can hurt City’, but do I deliver a game plan on the back of what they can do, knowing the quality of the players I have? I don’t want to ask my players to do something they’re not capable of doing.
“We also have to identify that they’re not in a good moment and they will rest players, because they’ve got Real Madrid in the Champions League on Tuesday.
“City have vulnerabilities at this moment. The question is: Can we exploit them?”
Wellens is a deeper thinker than he used to be and says he is a better manager for it, but ironically that is something he’s achieved by thinking and working less.
He has previously told The Athletic about how the enormous stress of football management had affected him physically (bleeding gums at night from clenching his jaw, losing hair, gaining weight) as well as mentally.
He will now let his coaches take the training sessions earlier in the week rather than leading them himself, and when studying and planning he will undertake his key work in 45-minute blocks. “I do as much quality work as I can in that time and then I’ll walk away,” he says. “Then, two hours later, start again, rather than three, four, five hours of tired, poor work.”
Wellens has moved to the directors’ box from the touchline in recent months (Pete Norton/Getty Images)
He keeps a notepad and pen next to the bed to write down late-night ideas. He gives fewer messages to his players, trying to avoid overloading them with information, plus, as mentioned, now he sits in the directors’ box rather than in the dugout, which helps his clarity of thought as well as keeping him away from fourth officials’ ears.
“Have you ever sat on the front seat for a football match?,” he asks, which is pretty much the view you get from the dugouts, too. “It’s rapid, it’s fast, you have to follow the ball, the noise, the tempo… Up there (in the stand), everything moves slower and you get a bird’s eye view.
“I like seeing it for myself.”
Does he still celebrate an Orient goal up there, though?
“F***ing right, yeah.
“I’ve changed as a manager and I’ve grown to respect other managers. When I won when I was younger, I was happy to have a drink, but when I’d lost… I felt down, disappointed, but now I go and congratulate the opposite manager.
“I’ve heard from a number of managers that Pep’s brilliant and that he likes a drink post-match. I have absolutely no idea on wine, I’m a bottle of Bud kind of guy after a game… my chairman is a bit richer than me and can get the expensive wine in.
“I’d love to ask Pep questions, ask him advice, see what he thinks about the way we play. He’s the best, isn’t he? I don’t like comparing eras, but he’s the best of his era. You’d be foolish not to nick a few ideas off him.”
Orient like to play on the front foot, they like to press high and they like to have the ball (averaging ninth highest in League One for possession and eighth highest for goals). Wellens has a game plan in mind, but it is not one that involves getting in City’s faces, like Arsenal did when thrashing them 5-1 at the Emirates Stadium last weekend.
“We’re planning for a few different scenarios,” he says. “It’ll be a different game and more without the ball. I grew up at Manchester United and our mentality was about winning and attacking.
“If you’re Arsenal (playing City), you can poke the lion. If you’re us, you don’t want to go down that road, at all. If any of my players score and do the Haaland celebration (as Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly did on Sunday) they’ll be fined. We don’t want to be disrespectful to a brilliant opponent.”
With Wellens higher in the league pyramid as a manager now than he has ever been, this tie offers a chance to show the watching nation what he has built at Orient in two-and-a-half years.
Not that, in typical manager fashion, he is too bothered. Mid-table Mansfield Town visiting in the league on Tuesday, while City are playing Madrid, will be more important.
“I want my players to perform. I don’t know if they’re going to freeze,” he says. “In terms of me personally, it’s not about me. I’m buzzing for my chairman that we’ll have a payday, I’m buzzing for the supporters, who get to see maybe the best Premier League team there’s ever been.
“If you said to me now that we’d beat City but lose against Mansfield, or lose to City and beat Mansfield, I’d take the second one all day.”
Not that he wouldn’t say no to beating Guardiola and having a bottle of beer to celebrate.
(Top photos: Wellens watches training; Zech Obiero and Charlie Kelman enjoy the session — Kynan Foster/Leyton Orient)
