Since the agony of the playoff final defeat in May this year, Leyton Orient supporters have seen a takeover, a record fee paid for one of our players, a new three-year deal for star winger Dean Cox and - quite uniquely for Orient - a handful of signings of players known to people with football knowledge limited exclusively to the top two divisions.

Since that Chris Dagnall penalty at Wembley in May, the club’s off field activity can be described as anything but average for a club of our size and stature. A month into the new season, it’s tough to say anything but average about the results so far on the field.

All of my Orient supporting life (20 odd years or so) has been spent with Orient in the lower two divisions. Rightly or wrongly, Barry Hearn did not let the fans forget how small the club is and how we must not expect too much out of ‘Little Leyton Orient’.

Indeed, not too long ago we looked certain to fall out of the Football League and a few years prior to that, out of existence altogether. It is therefore not a surprise, and for good reason, that before the start of this season the expectation levels amongst all Orient fans were uncharacteristically sky high.

On the Orient podcast I present every week, we interview a fan of our next opposition. So far, without fail, every single one has either called Orient a ‘big team’ or one that they would be happy with a draw against.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to people calling Orient a big team, especially when you look at the sorts of teams that have frequented League 1 over the last few years, but whether you accept it or not, Orient are now viewed as a major force in this division. With this in mind, we now face a challenge unlike any that we’ve faced for quite some time: overcoming a weight of expectation and not being the underdog any longer.

The striking thing about the season so far is that our performances away from home have been a whole lot better than anything we have served up at Brisbane Road. A very good performance, clean sheet and point at title favourites Bristol City, a comfortable victory at windy Oldham and a cup triumph at Villa Park compared with the, sometimes painfully, subdued and average performances against Chesterfield and Walsall at home.

It is perhaps understandable that people who have only seen the team at home this season are worried about our promotion credentials. And make no mistake; promotion is everyone’s aim this season, an aim that will be very much reliant on home form.

Last season we were undoubtedly the surprise package in the division. Teams would come to the Matchroom Stadium thinking they had a chance to get something, and even after our amazing start and continued success, a lot of people still thought we would fall away sooner or later.

In the last four months of the season, when teams started respecting our league position, our home form suffered somewhat, with the team going on to lose as many games as had been won. This season it appears even at this early stage that most teams will be more than happy with an away point and as we have seen in the first two games, will pack the midfield, trying to stop us playing with the hope they can snatch a goal.

Away from home, teams have to attack us a bit more thus leaving space and time for us to carve out opportunities. The massive job that Russell Slade and the players have to now overcome is finding a way to break that stubborn resistence that the team will encounter from other teams when they come to Brisbane Road.

No team in this division is a pushover and when you are forced to play against ten men behind the ball it takes some guile and determination, some tactical nuance or even one or two moments of magic to break that down.

Aside from this, work rate is a major factor and whilst by no means have the O’s been lazy this season at home, they may find that to get that tiny bit extra space, that extra tackle that needs to be made, that extra run into the box may be what is required if we are to go that one extra step this year and banish that Chris Dagnall penalty to the history books.

Adam Sampson presents the E10mess podcast which can be found on iTunes or http://www.soundcloud.com/e10mess.